On Tuesday, just as they were disappointing Wall Street with lackluster earnings, Yahoo also announced a redesigned home page. The redesign had been expected but had apparently been moved up to coincide with the earnings announcement. Mediapost provided a good rundown of the features included in the new page, which Mashable felt was a return to Yahoo's portal roots with an acknowledgement that social networks have dramatically changed web usage.
There was a fairly wide consenus that Yahoo, while still a behemoth with 340 million visitors a month, had once again missed its mark. PaidContent.org felt that the apps included on the page were not robust enough to accomplish their goal of holding the user to the page. John Batelle liked the aggregation options but felt that the page did not live up to its billing. Saad Kamal wrote that Yahoo seemed to be stumbling because it could not define its core objectives.
There were a few voices slightly more optimistic in nature. Jeremiah Owyang acknowledged that the new page was not quite revolutionary but that the page could eventually become a resource for brand marketers looking for a deeper involvement with customers and prospects. ClickZ provided examples of how Yahoo, by opening up the page, could host sponsored apps for an audience that is still bigger than Facebook's.
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