Yahoo: The 'Homer Simpson Tie' of the Internet Rebrands

Early media reports had speculated that the whole of Yahoo, which is 21 years old was being rebranded — but it later emerged that only the part of Yahoo not being sold to Verizon Communications will be renamed Altaba.

Altaba will also swallow up Yahoo's multi-billion-dollar stake in similar sounding Chinese company Alibaba, which according to Ben Moss, a UK-based digital designer and processor "is a sensible business decision." 

"They're hoping to piggyback on the success of the brand," Mr. Moss told Sputnik.

"Ultimately, it's not a bad name, it's short and has a positive association, so I don't think they're really losing anything by rebranding."

According to Ben Moss, Yahoo, as a brand has always had a "branding" problem.

"Yahoo is the guy who wears a Homer Simpson tie to prove it's got a personality, they've always had a branding issue because they're a very narrow brand."

"The main issue for Yahoo is that others just did it better," Mr. Moss told Sputnik.

"Google just did a better job. They needed to be a bit braver."

The name-change also comes as CEO Marissa Meyer, formerly of Google, steps down from the tech giant.

"Melissa Meyer came from Google, so you have to question if she had the support she needed to do what she proved she could do at Google," Mr. Moss says.

"She had a very good track record that simply hasn't played out at Yahoo."

"She was given the impossible task to rescue Yahoo, but tech giants just go under sometimes, they just do," Ben Moss told Sputnik.

Speculation is mounting that rebranding part of the company could be one way for Yahoo to leave its recent problems behind, including the two big data breaches that affected more than a billion user accounts.

Total rebrand or not, social media users on Twitter are still enjoying a bit of fun at Yahoo's expense.