May 16, 2006

Yahoo Launches New Home Page

Michael Arrington

52 comments »

The new Yahoo home page, which was previously in private testing, is now available to anyone using IE or Firefox (up to version 1.5) at yahoo.com/preview. There are a number of cosmetic changes, including a wider page layout, a bigger search bar, and intelligent use of Ajax to make the page more interactive (mouse over “mail” in the right sidebar, for example). More on the Yahoo Search Blog.

Key changes include a “personal assistant”, which is a preview area to see recent emails, an online friends list from Yahoo IM and other information (traffic, weather, etc.). They’ve also launched Yahoo Pulse!, “a window to the attention stream of our estimated half-billion users”.

Richard MacManus has a podcast with Yahoo Chief Product Officer Ash Patel and Vice President of Front Doors Tapan Bha about the launch.

Screen shots of the new and old Yahoo pages:

New:

Old:

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Comments

Looks nice! I like it. Subtle yet effective change. Do people still visit this page, though? Obviously millions do, but do they actually ‘look’ at it, or just take it for granted. Would be fascinating to see usage patterns before and after.

 

Definitely not enough green! :)

Interesting to see them move away from the “Yahoo look” with the buttons on each side of the logo.

 

That’s a bold step on behalf of Yahoo. The problem is that they had to go through extensive testing in order to be sure that the vast majority of users feel comfortable with the new elements.

 

I like the preview mouseover feature on the top right hand box with mail, IM, local, etc. and I can’t understand why they didn’t deliver the same funtionality across more of the page. It would be a lot easier and faster to browse the top stories if the Featured, Entertainment, Sports & Money tabs in the main box at the top of the page previewed their content also.

 

Might look better aestheically, but the page is still really, really busy and difficult to use (IMHO).

 

I really like the new Yahoo! homepage. I love the way in which the email box etc. drops down smoothly when you hover on it. Thanks for the heads up Michael!

Digg this post here.

 

Google Notebook is launched!. Please review it

 

If your using Firefox with the web developer toolbar, go to information.. view document size. Is it really a smart move from Yahoo! to jump from 61kb to this size download?

 

Yahoo is reacting to google, they are no longer creative, like they use to be, with My Yahoo, yahoo IM etc.

This is another lame try to keep dying user base.

 

Hmm… it’ll have to grow on me, I suppose. Not really digging it.

There is way too much going on here. I switched to using Google because of the simplicity of its homepage. The use of shading, gradients, and diagonal lines is very “Web 2.0″ but I don’t think it adds anything to the user experience. The left navigation is clunky and the alternating text sizes on nav items is distracting.

Doing a side-by-side comparison of the new version versus the old, I am more inclined to use the old version.

Nice try, Yahoo… but I think there’s some work that still needs to be done here.

 
 

mouse over “mail” in the right sidebar doesn’t work in narrow layout.

 

The design of yahoo website better than old design. Cleaner UI Design and less wording. But is good also reacting to MSN and Google.

 

There is only one *real* Yahoo! homepage, and it is located at:
http://search.yahoo.com/
Look at it’s beautiful aesthetics and simple, well-planned design. It’s truly ground-breaking and inspirational, ladies and gents!

 

> Firefox (up to version 1.5)

Actually it appears it works *only* on version 1.5 - doesn’t work on version 1.0.8 on my linux desktop.. the preview looked nice though.. shame.

 
 

The narrow version of the new layout is much better then the wide one you default to.

 

They just launched Tech like a week or two ago and it’s already being bumped from the homepage?

 

I’ve had Y photos, mail, and YM for some time, never really thrilled with any of it until recently, but preferred them to most alternatives (aka the lesser of evils). But I thought YM got awesome last year, and recently the mail got wicked wicked awesome, so I’d been waiting for a better Photos. But then I gave up waiting and switched to Flickr (mostly for the looks - I mean, it is a photo site so the surroundings are important to me, hate clutter and tons of ads). The only other heavy-use piece of my puzzle is music, and I prefer Last fm to Launchcast (tho I suppose they may not even be trying to be similar?). Then I found Goowy, which enables me to see my YM and my MSN peeps, my email, my flickr photos, my last fm flow, my del.icio.us bookmarks and all the usual stuff like feeds and weather, plus a Briefcase-like file storage thing, and Calendar and Contacts. Whoa. Can’t have Y mail on it? No worries, now using my gmail instead.

 

It’s nice.

The page is much shorter before, with far less content being lost “below the fold”. The Ajax touches and tabs on the content boxes encourages exploration and discovery - good stuff.

 

In my opinion, it’s not a reaction to Google. Google has only a search box on their homepage. You do not see any news, entertainment, new email status, weather, etc. on their homepage.

I think the revamp of the Yahoo homepage is a good one as it displays the multifacet areas of Yahoo which most people probably don’t know about or how to get to. I’m referring to the Yahoo services. How many of you guys know there was a notepad.yahoo.com?

I think people fail to forget that Google is not Yahoo’s main competitor. They are also competiting with all the entertainment sites and sport sites like CNN.

 

the problem with yahoo, is there is too much garbage on their home page

if they had just left it alone with a search box and button, it would be fine

if google ever does this, i’ll probably stop using google

i want to search, not be distracted by all this other crap

 

Ugh. What Yahoo needs is much better cross-site navigational consistency, not a fancy-schmancy layout. Some navigation is just ridiculously convoluted. How about a single heavily-nested dynamically loaded menu to reach every page from every page, with the in-site navigation emphasized?

 

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame

 

I like the fact that Google only has the search field on their homempage.

 

I think the new lay out is well done. They’ve been working on it for many months and had a large team of UED’s slicing, dicing and re-arranging the elements on the home page until they found a version that is clean, usable and visually appealing. They get an ‘A’ in my book.

 

I likes it a lot. Interesting how it’s moving more towards a tool design over that of an online publisher. As with web 2.0, Yahoo is pushing it presence in the lifestyle ‘tool’ space.

Sounds obvious, but it appears very functional. Usability teams rejoice.

http://contentcontent.blogspot.com

 

I really love the new homepage! I like the disign, colors, style, etc. It is more “Web 2.0″ portal style, and in a Internet services portal, I search this! I don’t use only search, but I use a portal including a lot of services. They are all there, at one click! This named convergence: a lots of tools, services or products together in a easy access mode. Yahoo! made it. Thank you, Yahoo!, to make Internet mine!

 

Look at this Yahoo Homepage ARCHIVE from 1994 to the Present Beta

news.com.com/2300-1032_3-6072801-1.html

Here is a working version of the 1994 directory

web.inet-tr.org.tr/History/yahoo/

 

Everyone loves Google, but I also like Yahoo. What I love about Yahoo is that they have great ads. They’re so creative.

This is a nice trip down memory lane of the Yahoo TV commercials.

My favorite is the original Yahoo! gone fishing ad . It’s sure to go down as a classic like the Apple ad from way back.

 

No Camino. Boo.

 

Hm, it would appear that the US version doesn’t like IE 7 either. Neither does Yahoo! mail beta.

 

For those of you comparing Google’s homepage (just a search box) to Yahoo!’s (everything but the kitchen sink), keep in mind that both companies have two different corporate missions. They both seem to overlap frequently, but Yahoo! is not just a search engine. It hasn’t been just a search engine in years. Google on the other hand, is just now starting to branch out.
And Google’s “Personalize Your Homepage,” IMO, is really similar to the old My Yahoo!. So when you say that Yahoo!’s new page is in response to Google (and MSN), you may be right, but it doesn’t matter. They are all reacting to each other trying to gain/keep their competative edge.
The point is that both places offer you the same things, Yahoo! just has it all easily accessable on the homepage whereas for Google, you need to click on the “more>>” button their homepage to see most of it. If you don’t want it all on your homepage, and you just want the search engine, either use Google, or as Tom Morris pointed out, go to http://search.yahoo.com. Both pages have a search engine box and a logo.
And if you really hate the new homepage that much and like the old My Yahoo! so much more, click the “Switch to old page” at the very top left of the page and stfu.

 

Y! did well, I take my hat off. The web really is moving forward, and I cannot be more delighted.

 

I noticed that the Messenger link shows friends who are online, however, the application list shows them offline. Interesting.

 

It is obvious that Yahoo is down and out in the last quarter and has no choice but to launch a ‘Hail Marry” play. Being a yahoo user since the beginning (back when we used Gopher) I can see where they have gone wrong and too no surprise so does Yahoo, although they’ll never admit it. It is easy enough to prove just look at the original yahoo. http://search.yahoo.com/
Not much different then Google. Or should I say Google is not much different from the original design of yahoo. I am not a Google lover, I’ve always beleived that Google capitalized on this #1 Yahoo error.

 

It looks put the original My Yahoo to the front.

 

I like the old one better. This one is too white and busy.

 

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Im not going to. I like you when you are submissive. I like when you are like a little girl, I like when you pearce me with those green eyes.

 

Yahoo is definitely stepping up to the plate with this new Ajaxed pro action page. With all that said, I still am a Google guy.

______________________________________________________
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[OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR]

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I want you to send your direct mobile phone and your home address to me immediately, so that as soon as the diplomatic arrive in State they will call you immediately to notify PRIVATE EMAIL cbnig_gov7000@yahoo.co.in

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