Yahoo! for Net cafe anniversary

Yahoo! Australia and NZ Mail, along with other Web sites around the world that sprouted from the original 1994 search engine yahoo.com, has launched an Internet Cafe of the Year competition commemorating the anniversary, Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand said.

The company said it would also select winners in four categories: the Internet cafe in the most unusual or remote location, the most stylish Internet cafe, the Internet cafe with the best coffee and food, and the most always-on Internet cafe.

Internet cafes could be nominated by emailing internetcafeawards2003@yahoo.com.au by 1 November 2003, Yahoo! said. Nominations should include up to 500 words detailing the cafe entered and why it should win.

Internet cafes have spread around the world, to places as unlikely as the Khumbu Glacier on the lower slopes of the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest, Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand said.

US-based parent company Yahoo! Inc, which earned net revenue of US$953.1 million in 2002, provides Internet communications, commerce and media to around 237 million people a month globally and claims to have been the first online navigational guide to the world wide web.

The NASDAQ-listed company began in 1994 as a hobby for two California-based university students. Today Yahoo!--which is an acronym standing for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle--is available in 12 languages and has 3,571 employees in 25 nations.