Yahoo’s struggles

Once the darling of the Internet world, Yahoo has struggled in recent years to find its identity.

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In this 2010 file photo, then PayPal president Scott Thompson speaks at the company's international headquarters in Singapore. Thompson, who was named CEO of Yahoo in January, stepped down from the position May 13, amid controversy over mentions on his resume and in regulatory filings of a computer science degree he never received. Yahoo says it is appointing Ross Levinsohn as interim CEO and Fred Amoroso as chairman of its board, effective immediately.

Wong Maye-E / AP

In this Nov. 5, 2008 file photo, Jerry Yang, then CEO of Yahoo, listens to a question at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Yang is leaving the struggling company. The surprise departure, announced Jan. 17, 2012 comes just two weeks after Yahoo hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson as its CEO.

Paul Sakuma / AP

In September 2011 Yahoo ousted its Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz because she was performing poorly in the position, which she held since 2009. After she was fired, Bartz responded to criticism over her decision to partner with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, saying that Yahoo’s board hadn’t given the deal enough time to pay off, calling the board members “doofuses.”

Paul Sakuma / AP

In 2011, ABC News joined forces with Yahoo to deliver more digital news content to their audiences. With the deal, the companies say ABC News content will be prominently featured on the Yahoo News and Yahoo home pages.

Richard Drew / AP

The Yahoo sign, which overlooked Interstate 80 in San Francisco, is dismantled on Dec. 21, 2011. The move marked the end of a familiar piece of San Francisco's urban landscape.

Michael Macor / AP

In June 2010, investors ran up the price of Yahoo shares after a report said that AOL and a group of private equity firms may bid for the Web company.

Mark Lennihan / AP

A news ticker in New York's Times Square displays an announcement that Yahoo would name Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz as its new CEO. The 2009 decision ended Yahoo's two-month search to replace co-founder Jerry Yang, who surrendered the CEO reins after potentially lucrative deals with rivals Microsoft and Google both collapsed.

Bebeto Matthews / AP

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang gestures in the Yahoo booth after he gave his keynote address at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. His speech came just days after Yahoo shares fell 17 percent as hopes for the once-dominant search engine dimmed following Microsoft's withdrawal of a $47.5 billion takeover bid.

Paul Sakuma / AP

At a 2008 annual stockholders' meeting, Yahoo shareholders got the chance to air their anger at the company's management over its handling of a takeover offer.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang, left, and David Filo pose for a portrait in the company's headquarters. When Microsoft withdrew its bid to buy Yahoo in May 2008, it essentially thwarted an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google. The decision to walk away from the deal came after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price proved unsuccessful.

Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP

As the company was battered by slow revenue growth and the popularity of social networking sites, Yahoo set up a tent at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Yahoo was a pioneer of loud, in-your-face marketing. This photo provided by Yahoo shows multimedia submissions to the Yahoo Time Capsule project being projected onto canyon walls and sent into space via a digital laser light beam at Jemez Pueblo, N.M. For this 2006 project, people from more than 200 countries contributed more than 70,000 pictures, video, writing, art and sounds.

Brian Kersey / AP

In 2006, Yahoo debuted the most extensive makeover of its front Web page in a decade, offering 402 million users more interactive features and more information compiled from the activity in other sections of its site.

Yahoo / AP

Yahoo's Terrell Karlsten works on the company's Messenger service in 2006.

Paul Sakuma / AP

In 2005, Yahoo co-founders and executives celebrated their Web site's 10th anniversary by ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ in Times Square.

Rob Tannenbaum / AP

As Google's popularity surged, Yahoo began to struggle and the company brought in Terry Semel, a former Hollywood executive, to take over the company and make it more content-focused. Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer in 2005, handing over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang in an attempt to regain investor confidence.

Elaine Thompson / AP

One of the most ambitious projects Semel took on while at Yahoo was to hire journalists to try to remake Yahoo into a media company. In an undated image released by Yahoo, Kevin Sites uses a digital video camera and tripod to record a television-style standup from inside a bombed-out building in Grozny, Chechnya.

/ AP

Children in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province examine Yahoo journalist Kevin Sites and his gear in the small village of Torah Wrey.

/ AP

In 2005, Yahoo was accused of providing Chinese authorities with information that led to the jailing of two Chinese e-mail users. Here, a woman walks past a Yahoo billboard in a Beijing subway.

/ AP

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt laughs while picking out a Yahoo Search T-shirt during the MTV Style Lounge, an event leading up to the 2005 MTV Movie Awards.

Danny Moloshok / AP

In January 1999, Yahoo bought rival GeoCities for $5.02 billion. The deal allowed Yahoo to broaden its Web services by allowing customers to set up home pages or chat with others. Here, GeoCities employees pose for a picture after the announcement.

Mark J. Terrill / AP

In this March 3, 1997, photo, Yahoo co-founders David Filo, left, and Jerry Yang hold up a fish prop in Filo's office in Santa Clara, Calif. Yahoo invested billions in its Internet search engine before realizing it made more sense to entrust the job to an outsider — something the company's co-founders concluded shortly after they started a Web directory in the mid-1990s.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Yahoo car license plate covers are displayed at the company store at its headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Paul Sakuma / AP

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