When Verizon announced it was buying out former Internet powerhouse Yahoo, the deal was a head-scratcher for many. Yahoo will now be known as Altaba and an insider revealed anonymously the inspiration behind the name change.
Verizon made a deal offer of $4.8 billion last July to Yahoo, which had been floundering for years despite being the third-most visited search engine site with over 1 billion users. The deal was understood by market analysts at the time as a particularly low price for what was one of the biggest companies of the early to mid-2000’s.
The decision to rename the brand as Altaba turned heads and speculation over why the new name has been swirling around since the company’s continuing push to rebrand. According to a Yahoo insider speaking under a condition of anonymity to the Washington Post, the name is a combination of “alternative” and “Alibaba” as Yahoo owns a 15 percent stake in the powerful Chinese e-commerce company which equals out to around $35 billion.
What this change means for Yahoo! News and its various online content properties remain to be seen. Thus far, it appears that the company intends to provide the same level of visibility considering it has 1 billion users to account for.
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Photo: By Wikipedia user Coolcaesar.
