A: Say, are gonna have some second anniversary party for the Yahoo!Webring. Weren't you here when that was created?

B: Yep. In a couple of days it will be right at 2 years.

A: So which Yahoo actually actually thought up that idea?

B: Turns out we didn't think of it. We got the idea from the Geocities acquisition. Seems they'd sucked up some ring thing some kid had started a couple of years before. We just ended up with it. It had never done anything and was pretty much a mess. It didn't have any structure. People did pretty
much whatever they wanted. There were not standards. So we kept the name and rewrote it to really make it work.

A: You're kidding. I didn't realize that. Like what do you mean?

B: Well, before we fixed it the RingYahoos were called something stupid like
RingMaster or RingLeader or something like that. Each one actually created unique navigation controls on their own and expected people to put them on their websites. They didn't have the cool navbar like we do.

A: Each one did it different?

B: Yes, and each one actually thought it was their right to do it different. I mean, how do you ever institute effective brand management if everyone is doing it different?

A: Wow. How did they do that and get it to work?

B: It was a challenge. People could never figure out how to add the code to their page. Some had graphics; some didn't. Some used lots of codes; some used a few. Some used image maps; some used text. It was a real mess.

A: Did it work at all?

B: Sort of. But get this. Some RingYahoos actually let people point the navigation to one page and put the code on another page. Can you imagine anything so rediculous?

A: How did the system ever police it?

B: This is the really crazy part: they didn't!! They actually expected each
RingYahoo to police their own rings. The RingYahoo let people in and kicked
people out. They spent time managing it!!

A: That's nuts. Why would they do that?

B: Well, they got some traffic because the code had some way of linking to the RingYahoo's site. But mostly it seemed they did it out of personal pride. Seems they thought that the ring was somehow "theirs"? They felt a sort of parental pride in the thing. Can you imagine?

A: Were they happy when we finally fixed it for them?

B: Exactly the opposite. Man you had to have been there. First, they actually thought the system should have worked the day we flipped the switch. Then some were so mad that we were going to take away a few of their
precious creative freedoms that they completely ignored how much easier we
were going to make their lifes. The actually deleted their rings and moved them. It was nuts. There were hundreds of messages flying back and forth. It was a stressful week or two.

A: How did you all cope?

B: That was the brilliant part. We ignored them. We didn't respond, we didn't post updates, we just kept our mouths shut. A bunch left. But by a couple months later, it was all quiet and those who stayed just shut up and we haven't heard a peep since.

A: Pretty nuts if you ask me. No wonder we were able to fix it. I understand total number of rings has doubled and membership has quadrupled since we took it over.

B: Absolutely. All the numbers are fantastic. Remember: most people on the net are just like sheep. They don't know what is best for them. That's why we are here.

A: You got that right. What did the net ever do before Yahoo!

James S. Huggins
Professional Speaker, Author & Technologist
Copyright 2000.