Making new Yahoo! homepages your own

Posted May 26th, 2009 at 12:30 pm by Tapan Bhat, Integrated Consumer Experiences

 19 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

We recognize that for many of you around the world, the Yahoo! homepage – whether you’re seeing it on a computer or a mobile device – is Yahoo!. And we know you all have vastly different interests and “must-see” places you navigate to online. We can make our homepage better reflect this reality and, as many of you know, we’ve been hard at work on improving both our mobile and Web homepages.

What’s new, you ask?
We recently made the new Yahoo! Mobile (http://m.yahoo.com) available on the mobile Web across more than 300 devices and as an Apple iPhone app – both are available in eight countries, with more launching soon. We’ve moved out of beta and are in the process of rolling it out as our default mobile homepage.

Like the PC homepage we’re testing, the new Yahoo! Mobile has a more feature-rich design, letting you bring together your favorite content and services from across the Web, making it more personally relevant. For example, my experience is customized with my Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! Messenger accounts, as well as my various stocks, favorite blog feeds, and weather from my favorite cities. The beauty of it is that you can customize the experience to exactly what you want and add anything to the page.

As for the Web, we recently started testing some new designs based on your feedback. We recognize that many of you like your homepage just the way it is, thank-you-very-much, so the overall look and feel of the page will be familiar. But take a closer look, and you’ll see that we’ve made some fundamental improvements and packed in features that are easy to use and easy to make your own – things you have told us you want.

The “My Favorites” area on the left side of the page includes an applications “dashboard” with the ability to preview, interact with or navigate to your favorite sites – whether they’re on Yahoo! or elsewhere on the Web. It’s all fully customizable.

Here’s some of what’s new and cool:

• Lots more apps: We’re testing a growing library of apps that let you get more done without leaving the page. Some of these apps include eBay and MySpace, and content sites like USA Today and NPR. We also have newly developed apps for popular Yahoo! services like Messenger, Movies and Flickr.
• Social pulse: A new Yahoo! Updates app lets you keep up with your friends’ online activities directly on the homepage – such as a recently Buzzed article or a video uploaded to YouTube.
• Easier email: We’ve separated your individual email accounts as distinct apps, rather than a combined inbox, so that it’s faster and easier to get to the exact mail you want. This was a request we heard repeatedly during testing.

What about local personalization?
As a global company, it’s critical that we create localized homepages, and we’re testing them now in France, India and the UK. While we’ll provide a consistent experience across all our global homepages in terms of design, they will be customized with information and apps that are locally relevant. For example, the new homepage in India will include a Cricket app and a whole host of others that are India-centric, while the UK site will include apps such as underground alerts, news from the BBC, and more.

This screenshot shows London Underground alerts from Transport for London:

We’re excited about the new direction of our homepages, especially because you’ve helped us build them. The designs being tested are changing frequently based on your input. Stay tuned for updates in the months ahead as we roll them out more broadly.

Tapan Bhat
SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, Yahoo!

Tagged: news, yahoo! homepage

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19 Comments Add your own

matt | May 26th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

So… is it coming this year? maybe?

RichardOn | May 26th, 2009 at 2:49 pm

Interesting site, but much advertisments on him. Shall read as subscription, rss.

=bg= | May 26th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

Where can we sign up to test it? I mean, I want to!!!

=bg= | May 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

PS-
“designs being tested are changing frequently based on your input”

Um….where can I give the input?

PPS- Firefox says RE that m.yahoo.com link:

“The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded.”

Nicki Dugan | May 26th, 2009 at 5:27 pm

@Brinke, @Matt – Unfortunately, since we’re still in bucket-testing mode, it’s not possible to opt in to try the site. But we expect to roll it out more broadly in the coming months.

=bg= | May 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm

well, i get a glimpse of it for like 5 minutes..i hit the refresh on the page..and it’s gone.

Hard to offer feedback on that kind of bucket test.

=bg= | May 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm

PS-

I understand the new to have localized versions; but wouldn’t it be a good idea to standardize the look? IE, if you look thru the directory of International Yahoo! front doors- there are MANY different looks. Some purple, some not..etc

Todd | May 26th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

I don’t see a big difference — certainly nothing that would take another few months or more to complete. A big chunk of the page is devoted to . . . soup? And there’s another food-related teaser.

As much space that’s devoted to soup is devoted to popular searches. Both are a waste of real estate, imo.

And the small ads sprinkled about are just plain tacky. I actually used to like the creative full-page ads where a bird or something would fly around and then land back where it started.

But what’s saddest of all is how little space you devote to real news. As I recall, that used to be the centerpiece of Yahoo’s front page.

Clearly, you’re now shooting for a new demographic. I guess yahoo.com is now the old software-based AOL. I’ll stick to places like techmeme.com and memeorandum.com.

todd

=bg= | May 26th, 2009 at 9:28 pm

http://new.m.yahoo.com

I think that’s the link you want. Or http://www.m.yahoo.com, which redirects to the above.

Matthew | May 28th, 2009 at 12:58 am

I really like the new design. More focused.

anon | May 29th, 2009 at 8:34 am

Yahoo is great but can you please stop the Yellow Teeth adverts? My teeth are fine and the photos shown in these ads are revolting. Not what I want to see just after breakfast…or any other time of the day.

=bg= | May 29th, 2009 at 2:39 pm

Can you do something about the staleness of the content on the front page?

I have seen stories just showing up that were news weeks or even months ago. (Example: kid who plays pool.)

Other things stay up there for days and days.
(Example: movie of shark eating the GGB.)

The Pulse thing really oughta go. Every day, it’s another “Kim Kardashian off to the stylists!” story.

A bit more upmarket approach to the content would help IMO.

The CEO says “I don’t want Britney Spears on the front pg.’

A sampling of current heads:
Imagining the ‘Gossip Girl’ cast remaking ’80s film classics
Adam Lambert is undeniably upbeat despite loss
Surprising facts about Conan O’Brien
Is ‘I’m a Celebrity’ just an updated ‘Gilligan’s Island’?

Is there really a difference between Britney Spears and the celeb-uness of those?

Yahoo! is maturing into a new growth phase- the content needs to mature with it.

TC | June 2nd, 2009 at 7:19 am

ok so I have the new home page and I don’t like it to much it takes way to long for my mail to load. The lay out is ok but just not what I am use to. It took awhile to adjust to the tabs on the left. But its functional I guess it will get better with time. It does make it a little distracting when I am reading the news and try to preview my mail. By the way some of the ads are huge was that the plan?

TC | June 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 am

oh yeah now it is not such a fluid design between the homepage and my inbox. It doesn’t feel as smooth. its like to totally different design, instead of interconnected.

fred | June 2nd, 2009 at 1:47 pm

my brothers son has it on my computer at home. i had it at work then had to reformat an now i have the old one back, i will be happy to get the new one back i liked it better I’ve tried to get it back and no luck be glade when it is released.

Russ | June 4th, 2009 at 11:03 am

I like it. Very 2.0ish and clean. Clean is good.

Parag Shah | June 29th, 2009 at 1:24 am

Love the new mouse over features for applications with big ‘viewing area’ as opposed to small ones in the traditional homepage. Plus, I absolutely love the feature that the mouseover works even while the page/browser is not in focus (some other non-full-screen window is active) Technologically, I dont think I have seen a page on the www that can do that! The feature makes the Y! homepage way way cooler than all web pages currently viewable on the Earth.

Just one suggestion: Can some few words from an email message be added in the Y! mail preview area as snippets?

Suhas | July 28th, 2009 at 8:37 pm

I have been wanting to experience the new yahoo mobile mail on my iPhone safari browser but it always And always redirects me to the basic previous version after entering credentials. I remember I had clicked on ” take me to previous version” once and I never knew that there is no going back. This is so damn frustating. Just put up a link on the previous version of yahoo mobile mail or keep a switch in options. Pls pls take a note of it or give me a solution.

With best regrds
suhas

jo,uk mobile phone | January 21st, 2010 at 8:15 am

These Yahoo iphone apps look great, will they work with Blackberrys too?