
Marissa Mayer Rolls Out a New Yahoo.com - ot
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-20/marissa-mayer-rolls-out-a-new-yahoo-dot-com
======
bpatrianakos
"Overall it was important to me that the page be dynamic, that it feel very
fresh, and that it be very intuitive, and that it really tries to embody
beautiful design"

Is that really supposed to mean anything? It sounds like buzzword soup. It
should kind of go without saying that she wants the site to be fresh,
intuitive, and beautiful. I don't think anyone wants a stale, frustrating and
ugly website. That said, news feeds, AJAX, and oAuth don't necessarily make
the site all 3 of those things.

I'm really rooting for Mayer but I couldn't let that quote go.

~~~
wmeredith
She's not going to rattle off jargon from the technical requirements document.
If she did, the Business Week audience would respond with, "What's that
supposed to mean? It just a bunch of acronyms and industry jargon."

This is a marketing and PR piece.

~~~
dfxm12
Aren't buzzwords like this just as alienating as tech jargon? I know everyone
does it, but why does she have to speak in marketing/design jargon, and not
plain English?

~~~
seunosewa
Agreed. Apple executives speak in perfectly plain English and they are the
most valuable tech company in the world.

~~~
eqreqeq
correlation is not causation.

~~~
rhizome
...not _necessarily_ causation.

------
benburleson
I must be missing something. I haven't been to yahoo.com in a long time, but
this looks very similar to what I remember, just slightly updated for last
year's style.

<http://i.imgur.com/Z0EH12W.jpg>

~~~
sagarun
You have to go to the us homepage try <http://us.yahoo.com/>

~~~
vitorarins
it shows me a mobile page.. WTF??

------
jusben1369
I guess I'd be surprised to come in here and find overwhelming praise for
Yahoo :-) My wife uses Yahoo as her primary site for email/news etc. I took a
quick look and think this update is substantially better. Honestly it does
look "fresh" and "more intuitive" to me than before via an emphasis on a
better design.

One thing I've noticed with the media and financial world is that, when
they've been critical of Marissa, it's been because she hasn't made a
substantial, dramatic announcement about an all encompassing new strategy for
Yahoo. I suspect that's because she doesn't have one and doesn't really need
one. Yahoo still has a tremendous amount of popular services and traffic. Make
it less of a laughing stock so you can retain good talent. Do some good acqui-
hires so you can obtain new talent and just do good smart clean iterations
like this. I think that's half the battle for them. The other half is hitching
yourself to a growth engine around mobile or content.

~~~
foobarqux
> Yahoo still has a tremendous amount of popular services and traffic.

Which of these services are not witnessing substantial decline and will likely
remain relevant (never mind dominant) in the next 5 years?

edit: Yahoo Finance is the only candidate I can think of and I don't see it as
having a very dominant position.

------
jedberg
Infinite scroll breaks the metaphor of the sidebar! The indicator no longer
tells me how much more content there is on the page. I've hated it ever since
Facebook started doing it with photos.

~~~
jawns
Well, it DOES, strictly speaking, tell you how much more content there is on
the page. It's just that more content will be dynamically added as you scroll
down.

------
acabal
Looks like the web has gone full circle. Back in 2000 frames were all the
rage; in 2005 frames were the bane of good designers everywhere; now in 2013
we're back to frames again. Here's hoping the frames trend dies a swift,
permanent death sooner rather later.

~~~
Andrex
I can't find any evidence of frame or iframes on yahoo.com, what are you
referring to?

~~~
adorable
I guess he refers to the search bar at the top and the left navigation menu
that remain fixed when scrolling (i.e. acting like frames even though it's
just css / js)

~~~
Andrex
That's even weirder because that's better for user experience.

~~~
Zarel
Well, it breaks the Page Down button. :(

------
jwwest
It's disappointing that Yahoo = Mayer now in the media. I'm sure that plenty
of talented people spent a lot of time on this, only to have it sound like
Marissa Mayer coded the whole damn thing herself.

~~~
simias
How is it different from any other industry ever?

~~~
inerte
What?

Do you get news saying a new Prius was unvelied by 豊田 章男? Or Leo Rafael Reif
released a lunar robot vehicle?

~~~
TallGuyShort
No, but you get people saying Britney Spears released a new album and Ron
Howard has a new movie coming out. It's not in all industries, but it's
certainly not unique to Yahoo. Since Yahoo seems to be headed in the direction
of being a media company, it almost makes even more sense.

~~~
inerte
Yes, I agree with you. I disagree with simias saying "not different from any
other industry, ever".

~~~
TallGuyShort
I believe the presence of the comma between industry and ever is a subtle
distinction. With a comma, it implies that no industry has ever been the same.
Without it, it negates the implication that no industry has ever been the
same.

~~~
inerte
I see. As a non-native english speaker, I guess I read it wrong.

------
nonamegiven
I don't like infinite scroll, and I don't like automatic reloads.

I haven't been to yahoo in awhile; it looks mostly like I remember it, which i
suppose is a branding success. But I don't feel compelled to go, they don't do
anything unique. That said, if you want what they and others do, you have to
go somewhere to get it, and they seem to be doing a credible job doing it, so
it's as good as any other portal.

------
miles_matthias
I've only looked at the mobile site on my iPhone, but it looks great. One of
my complaints about Yahoo's homepage has always been their gossipy headline
news stories in big pictures on the front page. I'm sure that got them lots of
clicks with most people, but for me it just made me despise going to Yahoo's
website. It looks like they've replaced that with actual news so far.

~~~
danso
Really? The top two stories on the news carousel for me are:

1\. "Nonstop shouting" at Pistorius home

2\. Bruce Lee's mystery fight (which _was_ interesting, but not exactly big
world news)

Interestingly, I got the results above when logged into my Yahoo account,
which I only use for Flickr and nothing else.

When I visited Yahoo from a blank browser, the Bruce Lee story didn't show up.
I wonder if Yahoo guessed that I was Asian and thought that I would like Bruce
Lee (well, I guess they were right on that one...)

* The most egregious part of this Yahoo carousel headline was that the story was about how the investigating officer in the Pistorius bail hearing did terribly during cross-examination. He had to admit, among other things, that the "witness" lived 600 meters away from the Pistorius home...which is quite a contradiction to the headline. Whatever merits Yahoo.com's facelift has, this incredibly bad editorial judgment left a terrible first impression with me.

~~~
noahm
Assuming they use the same data for story targeting that they do for ad
targeting, you can see the profile they've built up around you (your account +
your current browser) at
[http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/det...](http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/details.html)
It might help to explain why you're seeing some of the stories you are.

------
nwh
I can't understand why they have two headers and search boxes, right on top of
each other.

<http://i.imgur.com/muXk97p.png>

ED: The Australian redirect is to a completely different website than the
American one. That's confusing.

~~~
DougBTX
Going directly to <http://au.yahoo.com/> doesn't show the upper search box.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
I see the upper search box at first, and then it gets covered up by one of
those full-page background ads. Might depend on adblock settings.

~~~
nwh
You've nailed it.

------
theklub
I wonder if the story quality on the front page will change. I went there
yesterday and was blown away by the degree of "tabloidism" that I almost took
a screenshot of how laughable it was. Using yahoo for searching the web isn't
even a thought anymore, I honestly feel bing comes to mind before yahoo. And
as for a news source, forget it.

------
rscott
I'm getting redirected to Yahoo's mobile site for some reason. Chrome 24 on
Ubuntu 12.04.

~~~
pgrote
Are you at a hotel by any chance? Anytime I stay at a hotel and access any
Yahoo property it pushes me to the mobile sites.

~~~
pacian01
no at home in my house useing my computer

------
conradfr
Where is the yodel when you click on the exclamation mark ? :)

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melvinram
What I love about this new version is that they implemented an idea that I've
wanted for a long time: filtering the site to not show you stuff you don't
want to see. I even wrote on HN about it 75 days ago
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4884902> :)

For example, there is a news story currently in circulation about Clive Davis
and Kelly Clarkson. I personally like Kelly's music but I don't care about
this feud so I just ignored it in my yahoo so hopefully it won't show up
again.

------
stevewilhelm
The Yahoo! properties I actually use on a regular basis, My Yahoo!, Finance,
Sports, and Flickr (which already looks pretty good but totally different than
the other properties) seem to be unchanged.

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alan_cx
No idea about any one else, but I got an email from google telling me that
iGoogle was going to be shut down. Not happy as that is my home page. So, I
for one will be going back and using My Yahoo in its place. Couldn't care less
about new staff or redesigns, its just going back to what I know. So, I wonder
if this will attract users back, or new users.

~~~
mindcrime
Can you add any arbitrary OpenSocial app to the My Yahoo thing?

------
harshreality
Dear Yahoo/Mayer,

I like purple too, but how about SSL-always and TOTP 2-factor auth?

------
pnathan
Yahoo.com Feb 2013 looks pretty sharp compared to how it looked a few months
ago. It's muuuch cleaner and doesn't look like a barely maintained derelict. I
could pick a few beefs with it, but, whatever.

It looked good on the iPhone and on the desktop.

------
127001brewer
By coincidence I had the Today Show on (while getting ready for work this
morning) when Marissa Mayer announced the improved home page.[1] In my
opinion, I thought the announcement was underwhelming and slightly awkward.[2]

[1]
[http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2013/02/20/17028847-the-n...](http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2013/02/20/17028847-the-
new-yahoo-design-whats-changed?lite) [2]
[http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-on-today-
show-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-on-today-show-2013-2)

------
deepuj
Y U no responsive design?

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
There are plenty of people who dislike responsive designs for good reasons. It
is not the fault of responsive designs itself but the fault of many mobile
browsers like Mobile Safari and Chrome for iOS. Here is what I mean:

Responsive websites usually don't let you zoom in by panning. Everything is
fixed. If you want the text to be larger you are out of luck on the browsers
mentioned above. On iOS you cannot make the font size bigger in Mobile Safari.
You can only turn on zooming in the accessibility settings which has its
drawbacks as well. I like to zoom in to the relevant parts of a website myself
- manually.

If most mobile browsers were capable of letting the user pick a different font
size then I would be all for it.

~~~
harlanlewis
Disabling zoom is done independently of CSS RWD, and should generally be
avoided for the accessibility reasons you state. Preferring zoom-and-pan to
scrolling is a separate issue, but I haven't seen or heard much to indicate
its a common sentiment.

It sounds like what you dislike is poorly done RWD, which only addressed the
aesthetic of the small viewport and not the unique navigation & content
challenges (unfortunately common).

------
orangethirty
Their search looks like Google looked some years ago. Not bad, though. The
design is now a bit more clear to navigate. But I still don't know what Yahoo
is about. Is it a search engine? Is it a news page? Is it for email? What is
it? Too much stuff at the same time is confusing. I have been using Yahoo
since 1997 (I think), and I still can't answer that question. Its like AOL.

------
RivieraKid
It's not bad but...

1\. Some elements of the design look "Googley", and that's not a compliment.
Specifically: light gray borders, link color, low contrast, sterille, cold,
boring, lacks personality.

2\. Unpolished. Buttons don't change style on hover or press, title bar shadow
looks odd on an overall shadowless page, the "More" menu blends with the
background.

------
AtTheLast
I like the direction Yahoo is going with the new design of Yahoo.com page. I
can go to Yahoo and in a few seconds get a snapshot of the stocks I follow,
the weather, and important news stories.

Mayer seems to understand how a product like Yahoo fits into the life a person
and then designs around that.

------
wjk
Looks like only the american site was updated so far. The swedish page still
looks like something from the late 90s. Even with the newer look i have a hard
time seeing myself actually using it though. I'm not really impressed to be
honest, mostly because its long, long, long overdue.

------
webwanderings
I like the new page. The middle of the screen small toolbar where you can
drop-down selected links is a nice and easy to way to quickly scroll through
the news items.

I have Ghostery and Adblocks enabled, so I don't know if others see Ads and
how it impacts the experience.

------
davesims
One way to lose the late-nineties/early-oughts associations with Yahoo: kill
the toolbar once and for all. Who uses those things? Is that really a revenue-
generator for them? And if so, at what cost to their image as a holdover from
a bygone era?

------
Tycho
I would suspect that the homepage wasn't really what they needed to focus on.
It's always had a strong standing as one of the 'portals' people visit when
they fire up a web browser. I don't know if the stats back that up.

------
jeggers5
The different shades of purple are quite annoying between the logo and the
lighter purple used elsewhere.

Also, surely they could've made it more coherent and made the actual search
results page have the same design as the new home page?

------
rothlis
It's still very busy, but less compare to the prior design. The low resolution
headline images on the landing page degrade the experience in my opinion. It
definitely looks like a news portal, not a search engine.

------
efbenson
It's cleaned up, but looks like its missing something. I waited for a while
after the page loaded expecting more style/design. I would think they could
come up with something a little more exciting.

~~~
ngokevin
Good design takes iteration. I always find new design launches are
underwhelming and have many flaws, but they always get fixed up nicely.

------
Roboprog
Yahoo has their own reporters? Maybe they could resurrect the art of
investigative journalism and get people to come to the site to find something
out about the world. Just a thought...

------
thezilch
Correction; "a New Yahoo.com [Homepage]"

It's not bad, but if I leave the page for any other Yahoo.com path, I lose the
experience; even worse, "top-level" paths can be very different themselves.

------
niix
Static navbar and infinite scroll all the things!

------
o0-0o
Key words from their new site.

Kardashian Starbucks Kissing girls.

There is really nothing beautiful, new, and fresh about any of that turd
sandwich.

------
seunosewa
They need to do country-based personalisation, just like Google News does,
since their audience is international.

------
dualboot
I wish she would get rid of the incredibly tacky "from Yahoo!" that someone
cut and paste on the the Flickr logo.

------
shreeshga
New Yahoo: Google News dipped in Purple.

------
marknutter
All those fixed elements on the page make the whole site feel incredibly
cramped. Very claustrophobic.

------
adrianwaj
Like dying the hair and eyebrows blonde all over again for acceptance and
promotion.

------
bill1982
Terrible new homepage. I switched to MSN after 15 years with Yahoo. buh bye!

------
ForFreedom
It looks more like an online ladies store or a Microsoft website.

------
thoughtcriminal
How sad. Yahoo is still fixated on "fresh" and "beautiful" design when it's
the content that needs to be completely overhauled.

Leave fresh, beautiful and intuitive design to Smashing Magazine. Yahoo needs
to make brave changes and Marissa isn't making them.

~~~
taligent
She's been in the job 6 months and a lot of changes have been made already.

Maybe a little patience is in order ? It took years before Apple could be
turned around.

------
eqreqeq
I know this may not be appropriate but wow is she cute [1] and hot [2] at the
same time. And on top of that she is brilliant, regardless of how her gig with
Yahoo! turns out. Which makes her even more attractive.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marissa_Mayer.jpg>

[2] [http://www.glamour.com/images/women-of-the-
year/1103-marissa...](http://www.glamour.com/images/women-of-the-
year/1103-marissa-mayer_at.jpg)

~~~
venomsnake
Calling someone in their 30-s that you are not into intimate relationship with
or hitting on them cute is indeed inappropriate.

Also her looks are irrelevant - they won't help her save the company and many
of yahoo shareholders will gladly kiss Medusa if she able to increase the
share price 3 fold.

I am much more worried that there is not much of her brilliance shown yet. The
new yahoo homepage, while improvement doesn't seem to be able to get new
demographics or fix the major problems that made me abandon yahoo years ago.

~~~
jiggy2011
It's probably good for PR to have an attractive woman in an important
position, especially in a tech company.

The press like publishing pictures of attractive people.

I'd wager more people have heard of Mayer than sergey brin for example.

------
bluethunder
This is as long as Yahoo CEO's last. If this is all what she has to show for
it, I'm guessing the search for the next has already begun.

Riding the Google roller coaster can alter the hard realities for anyone. The
heat is only felt where the rubber hits the road though.

~~~
danilocampos
The stock is up 34% since she took over.

So, nope.

