How AltaVista, the first good search engine, fell into the digital abyss

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I saw so many mistakes made within the year I worked there that were obvious even at the time for a lot of us that worked there, but at the same time there are many similarities to what happens with other very well funded projects trying to make sense of a new technology and way of doing businesses within a large very important company with a very different business model.

How AltaVista, the first good search engine, fell into the digital abyss | Hacker News Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login How AltaVista, the first good search engine, fell into the digital abyss ( tedium.co ) 349 points by chris_f on Dec 19, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 228 comments pelle on Dec 19, 2020 | next [–] I was the first corporate web master for AltaVista and joined in January 1996 to manage everything except for the actual search engine itself. It was my first real job at a large company and taught me a lot about working in corporate America. I s

How AltaVista, the first good search engine, fell into the digital abyss

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