Internet users of a certain age will remember Yahoo!, one of the earliest internet properties (which has almost been run into the ground in recent years). It is, amazingly, still around, though its influence is largely confined to the States where owner Verizon Media Group resides. But the service is looking for a resurgence, with the introduction of a new subscription service called Yahoo!+, or Yahoo! Plus.
Yahoo!?
Which is all a little energetic for us, what with the exclamation points and all. But that’s what the American public (and eventually, the world!) has in store. Verizon plans to rebrand many of its offerings to match the obnoxiously purple internet grandpa’s style, and bundle those into a single subscription service. Amazingly, there’s a user base for them to exploit right off the bat.
There are more than three million subscribers, who pay for access to items like Yahoo’s Fantasy (it’s a sports thing), Mail Pro and Finance offerings, as well as TechCrunch. These subscriptions are currently separate items but Verizon intends to combine them under the Plus umbrella. The payments will remain separate for each service, but the benefit of Plus is that each successive item added will increase the subscriber’s eventual discount. Which… might do something to further increase the company’s user-base.
Whether these moves improve the company’s relevance outside of the US and returns this Web 1.0 entity to its former glory though… that remains to be seen.
Source: Axios
Header image: Verizon Media Group