Remember Yahoo’s flashy purple billboard that for a dozen years lit up eastbound Interstate 80 through San Francisco? It’s back.
“As part of our 20th anniversary, I’m excited to share that Yahoo has reclaimed the iconic billboard along San Francisco’s stretch of Interstate 80,” said Kathy Savitt, Yahoo’s chief marketing officer, in an announcement Friday just a few hours before the sign turns on.
Its inaugural message will read, “It’s good to be back.”
The billboard is atop the same Sixth Street building as the old sign that was taken down in Dec. 2011, but it has a different design.
Yahoo’s older version was an “iconic and wonderfully whimsical sign that evokes an old roadside motel,” wrote Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy in its last days.
The new version is a bit sleeker. Like the last one, it will broadcast topical messages tied to Yahoo products and events.
Above: At left, old Yahoo billboard in Dec. 2011 (Photo by LiPo Ching / Bay Area News Group). At right, the new Yahoo billboard that switches on Friday night. (Photo courtesy of Yahoo)
