Yahoo announced upgrades in its web products that it hopes will help it to regain some lustre. The company wants to boost its user base because numbers have been either flat or slowly slipping, depending on which researcher is to be believed.
Within the next few weeks, Yahoo’s home page will add update access to Twitter, Facebook, and Zynga (social gaming), so that users can file updates to any of those sites without having to log on.
“We want to be the first choice, to be home base, for connecting across networks,” explained Blake Irving, the company’s new product strategy chief.
A major investment will be in developing new data centres but other improvements will be made to the search capabilities, email provision and the general look and feel of the web site. Yahoo will begin by unveiling its latest state-of-the-art data centre in a location just outside Buffalo in New York State on September 20.
Yahoo also said it will power free Wi-Fi services in Starbucks coffee shops beginning this Autumn but has not made plans to do this outside the US. Naturally, users who log on to the free networks will be directed to Yahoo content tailored to their local market.
Demonstrations at the Yahoo headquarters event included Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Citizen Sports, the revamp of its email service and a demonstration of the additional speed in its search engine.
Irving said that Yahoo Search is now penetrating more web sites and generally displaying larger results listings. Under the covers, most of this improvement is due to the new Microsoft Bing search power plant. The company signed a 10-year pact with Microsoft in July 2009 in which they agreed to share technology and advertising revenue.
Yahoo is the third most popular search engine in the UK, according to Hitwise. It recently lost second place to Bing but even their combined market share is minute. Google dominates with 91.88 percent, Bing has 3.02 percent and Yahoo is close behind on 2.83 percent. It is a slightly different story in the US where Hitwise rates Yahoo as second to Google with about 17 percent of the share.
Yahoo Groups was revamped recently and is now live, although a few features are still not quite ready for prime time. It granularises the Facebook idea by enabling users to create local or special-interest groups of friends who can share updates, photos, videos, event listings, polls and several other features.
“On Facebook, if you have hundreds of friends, you have to be careful about posting something that might be offensive or just not relevant to somebody,” Greg Rosenberg, Yahoo’s director of user experience, told eWEEK. “With Yahoo Groups, you can start up a smaller group on a neighbourhood page that would be of interest only to those neighbours living in the neighbourhood.
“There are already millions of people [115 million in 10 million Yahoo Groups] using this and it’s ramping up,” he added.
Irving said that Yahoo would keep investing in applications for mobile devices like the iPad and the upcoming Android-powered tablets. The Yahoo tablet home page will include email, news, an alarm clock, links to Twitter and Facebook, and a weather forecast page.
The company said it had signed contracts with about 100 carriers and handset makers globally to pre-install Yahoo applications on mobile devices.
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Yahoo tries to make its image more 'hip' ...... and fails, miserably!
Yahoo has (had?) a great product. One that many hundreds of thousands of members use every day. Yes, there are glitches, sometimes we feel like throwing our computers out of the nearest window….but it has so many things we love that we stay…for now.
This 'improved' look, where it tries to mimic Facebook….and fails, miserably, has members running to find a viable alternative. How long will it be, I wonder until Google groups gets its act together to make it easy for us to move all our group messages, files, folders, links, databases, polls, aps over to a product that does NOT plan to throw out the baby with the bathwater?
Will Facebook members abandon FB in favour of Yahoo Groups? Not a chance!
If Yahoo goes ahead with its plans, I give it perhaps a year, perhaps less. No customers = no advertisers = no more Yahoo groups.
Attention everyone! You or may or may not know that Yahoo uis in the process of changing and destroying our Classic Groups. We're making good progress, so here's our next step in the movement to save our Groups. We need to give Yahoo's Higher Ups some understanding of the importance of the Groups to us, so please tell us why you care about Yahoo Groups. Write something that tells us when and why you started using Yahoo Groups,how did you use them, as to what features, etc., did you read in e-mail or use the web interface, and why are you still here today after all this time? And if you are against changing the Classic Yahoo Interface to the New Remodeled Interface, tell us why the new interface doesn't work for you. If we get enough answers from everyone, we will collect and send your feedback to the Yahoo CEO and company. If you'd rather not reply here, feel free to join this group and post it there: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/
And here's part two of the plan. IF you want to help us gather data, and get the word out, copy and paste this post (or write something very similar) and post it in every Yahoo group, online blog, online site, you can and gather the feedback. When you have gathered the feedback, either post it here for me to collect or join the aforementioned group and post it there. You don't even have to stay in our group, just help us collect the data. Let's all take a stand and show Yahoo what the Yahoo Classic Groups Mean To Us! Spread the word, collect the data and let's fight for the groups we love! My new group is dedicated to doing everything it can to save our Groups. One collective voice is louder than 100 individual shouts! Come join in and let's make our message heard!
Owl >8#
Funny that Mr Irving would brag about how many users Yahoo Groups has, and then think he has to mess with success.
Funny how the changes that were made not only do not turn YGroups into a convincing Facebook clone, but render it completely unfit for what its users actually do with it.
"Groups" (a misnomer, and becoming a costly one) are the descendents of Listservs, Usenet Newsgroups, and services such as oneList and eGroups. These electronic mailing-lists (to give them their proper name) are about *topics*, not people. Their users subscribe to them because they share common interest in a particular subject. They may or may not share a common interest in each other.
We've made friends through e-lists, to be sure, but that wasn't why we joined. We subbed in order to discuss things like Ancient Rome, prehistoric mammals, the movie "Avatar", various role-playing games, falconry, miniature horses, senior dogs needing homes, the impact of 9/11...one group per subject, each dedicated to its subject and providing resources (file uploads, images, links...) related to its subject.
If you ask a librarian (knowledgeable person) for a book on falconry (source of information), you expect to end up with information about falconry. Now, suppose you make this request and she hands you the White Pages? You will be left pretty much where Yahoo Groups subscribers are now that the Powers That Be have decided to turn Groups (a source of information) into YaBook (a collection of personalities).
Post titles used to say "[Subject] posted by [sender]". Now it's [sender's avatar] "[sender] posted [subject] at [timestamp]". The focus has gone from the What to the Who...and we're not on Groups to talk about the Who. That's what social networks are for.
Yahoo has forgotten this difference, and in the process it is driving away many, many of its most literate and dedicated members. All that quality content...? Headed for Google Groups, Ning, Topica, message-boards and other venues as we speak; places where our message archives are not at the mercy of a product team that sees nothing more in them but idle "conversations". We'll see how Yahoo Anything does when there's no one left but the tweeting tweens.
I am sorry to lose Yahoo as the place for my groups, since it was by far the best, until now. Yahoo is losing itself in its effort to be all things to all people, which, being impossible, means it will become nothing, useful to no one. Yahoogroups is undergoing total destruction, becoming utterly useless to all but the groups for tween nonsense, abandoning any serious service for anyone over 18. There is no way to combine a Facebook wannabe with discussion of any serious topics that actually matter to members. One wonders why Yahoo is so eager to lose millions of users.
YATANIC, ICEBERG! DEAD AHEAD!
For weeks we’ve been striving
To save Classic Groups.
Since Yahoo just wants us
To jump through their hoops.
A group was created
To further our goal.
We threw ourselves into
The cause, heart and soul
There were 100 members
In no time at all,
All joining together
To stop this downfall.
We wrote Yahoo’s Execs,
And the media too,
Even told Advertisers
What they planned to do.
We feverishly worked,
Though it was a gamble,
While in her blog, Layla,
Continued to ramble.
“Stop this remodel”,
We shouted as one,
“You have no idea,
Of the damage you’ve done!
You’re destroying our archives!
Post numbers are gone,
Threading is chaos,
And our subjects are gone!
We don’t want your silly
Grey grinning ghosts!
Bring back our home page,
It mattered the most!
Our photos are scrambled,
Some even are missing,
Why are you doing this?
Our pleas you’re dismissing!
We simply can’t function
With your new “Yabook”!
Just give us an opt out,
To keep Classic Look!
Things that were private,
Have been compromised!
Members lists show,
And even archives!
We have no control of our
Management functions,
Some people are thinking
Of filing injunctions!
The thousands of posts
In the Suggestion Thread,
Are all going ignored,
Can’t you hear what we’ve said?
STOP THIS REMODEL,
We don’t want this mess!
You’ve upset us all,
And you’re causing distress!
If we wanted Facebook,
Then we would be there!
Our groups are our “homes”
Do you even care?
You came with a bulldozer,
You’re crushing them flat!
Don’t do this, we’d rather
Just stay where we’re at!
Don’t you know thousands
Of users are leaving?
And all of the rest are
Just sitting here grieving?
Please listen to us,
While we are still here,
Because if you don’t,
Then surely I fear,
No one will be left,
To hear what you say
We’ll be in our lifeboats,
All paddling away
Cause we see the iceberg,
And before it can hit,
We’ve all made our plans,
We’re ready to quit.
So please take a minute,
Slow down and think?
Because your Yatanic,
Well, it’s doomed to sink.”
By Nightowl >8#
(Owner of http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/)