So, the fact that its search engine finally has decent competition doesn't put it out of the running. It has an impressive technical infrastructure that has scaled well to a growing Internet, and even with today's traffic, it brings up pages rapidly without making fickle users wait for their results. Mail is quite a force in the free e-mail world in its own right. Auctions competes head-on with eBay and Amazon in auctions. Messenger competes with AOL's Instant Messenger service.
Travel can book an entire vacation.
Yahoo's excellent technical infrastructure and strong brand name allow it to compete vigorously with almost any content hosting service out there. And although they don't attempt to educate individual investors beyond providing research materials, and their message boards often have a distinct day-trading tilt, they're clearly an ally in The Fool's ongoing quest to educate, amuse, and enrich the general public. News has far more depth and variety of information and is a great one-stop place to find all the latest stories. Maps and even get driving directions from place to place. The frightening part is that I've only scratched the surface of what Yahoo has to offer, and more is appearing all the time.