Yahoo Chairman and CEO Terry Semel says in a blog post on Yahoo’s official blog that the reorganization of the company announced Tuesday marks preparation for a third-stage of growth for Yahoo.

Chapter 0: 1994
GET AN IDEA
Two Stanford graduate students create the first online navigational guide to the Web, a human-powered directory. The Web site started out as “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” It soon changes its name to Yahoo!, an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”

Chapter I: 1995-2000
GET BIG FAST
Tim Koogle is hired as CEO. Yahoo expands the idea of a simple directory, adding categories like Cool Sites, directory search, news, stocks, sports and local information. Growth spirals. Yahoo IPOs. It later adds e-mail, shopping, personals, chat, games and travel and instant-messaging.

CHAPTER II: 2001-2006
GET AUDIENCE TO SPEND MORE ON YAHOO

Terry Semel joins as chairman and CEO. Strategy changes include the embrace of contextual search and search advertising, amid a shift to broadband. Steady revenue growth follows. Terry Semel joins as chairman and CEO. Strategy changes include the embrace of contextual search and search advertising, amid a shift to broadband. Steady revenue growth follows.

CHAPTER III: 2007
GET BIGGER THAN YAHOO ITSELF
Semel says reorganization of Yahoo into two business segments and a centralized technology group is designed to serve customers not only within Yahoo’s own network of properties but also via partnerships on other online properties.
He pointed to high-profile advertising and Web services partnership deals Yahoo has struck in recent months with online auctioneer eBay Inc., 170 U.S. daily newspapers and mobile phone powerhouse Vodafone in Britain. “Those deals weren’t done in a vacuum,” Semel said in an interview, noting that the restructuring plan has been in development for “many months.”

The Pot of Gold: 2012, as Semel sees it:
“Thirty billion in advertising dollars will come online globally over the next five years,” Semel writes. That’s on top of the $12.5 billion+ that the IAB says was spent on online ads last year. “No one is better positioned than we are to take advantage of that. I believe we now have the right strategy, the right structure and the right people to provide the best experiences and results possible to our users, advertisers and publishers.”

Read Reuters’ full story

Photos: (Yahoo.com, Search Engine Journal’s Yahoo Visual Timeline)