( CNN ) -- Since 1999 , it has greeted visitors to San Francisco while standing as a symbol of the Bay Area 's status as a tech hub : A Yahoo billboard , retro-styled to look like a 1960s-era motel sign , with the tag line , `` A nice place to stay on the Internet . '' Now , it 's finally coming down . According to a report in the San Francisco Egotist , a sales manager for Clear Channel Outdoor in San Francisco has confirmed the billboard space will be available for new ads starting December 1 . Some bloggers are already speculating that a more of-the-moment Bay Area tech company , such as Facebook or Google , may take its place . The neon Yahoo billboard near the onramp to eastbound I-80 is a holdover from the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and inspired sister billboards in New York City and Los Angeles . It has outlasted four Yahoo CEOs , most recently Carol Bartz . The billboard 's space entertained passing motorists with such messages as , `` FREE E-MAIL . ALL U CAN EAT BUFFET '' and `` YOU LOOK CUTE TODAY . '' The inevitable Save the Yahoo ! Billboard page has already sprung up on Facebook , where it had amassed more than 800 likes as of early Friday afternoon .
A famous neon billboard in San Francisco may be down by next year . The retro - themed sign was erected in 1999 during the dot - com boom .