

Just say "No" [to Yahoo Axis] - cobychapple
http://dcurt.is/axis

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jacquesm
I haven't installed Yahoo! Axis, and I don't like yahoo as a company
(especially not after what they did to geocities).

But calling on people to say 'no' to a product for these reasons is a weird
move.

If it is crap then say why the product is crap, not that the promotion, the
logo or all the other stuff surrounding it are crap. What is wrong with the
product?

And if all that is that wrong, by all means, still install it.

See for yourself, evaluate it and say: 'yes, this really is crap', and for
these very specific reasons. After all, it's Yahoo, it would be surprising if
they suddenly came up with this absolutely great product. But at least install
it and evaluate it if you're going to tell people not to use it.

Apropos logos, that red-and-white logo has some interesting associations.

~~~
dcurtis
I am talking about people inside Yahoo who do not have the ability to say
"No".

The product is heavily informed by the ancillary activity that goes on to
support it, including the marketing materials. It's called execution. You need
an arbiter at the end of the chain who can say, "This isn't good enough."
Otherwise, you run the risk of doing something poorly, which is embarrassing
and damages the overall brand.

Yahoo, in particular, should be treating its brand very delicately right now.

~~~
jacquesm
I found the ad and the video painful to watch. But I still believe the product
should be judged on its merits.

As it is this looks as though you're trying to ride on the media buzz
generated by the product launch.

Of course Yahoo needs to work on their processes with respect to product
definition and execution. That's the whole reason they're dying in the first
place.

The just say "No." appears to be addressed to the readers of your post, and to
all of the people at Yahoo! inclusive.

But they already gave the indication that they stand behind their product,
after all they launched it. If you're going to make a point why they should
have said "No." in the first place then you should stick to specifics about
the product. After all, if you've already decided that some of the good stuff
from the concept will make it into future browsers you are actually saying it
is not all bad. And then maybe you should be specific about those things, both
good and bad as well.

That would make it a bit easier to say why people should say "No.". Logos, ads
and presentation are not a good reason to say "No." to any product.

~~~
dcurtis
No, actually these kinds of things are binary. Either you launch with
something that isn't good enough, or you launch with something that is good
enough. It takes talented people to know when that line is crossed.

My point with this post was to highlight the importance of people within an
organization like Yahoo having the ability to veto product launches when the
line hasn't been crossed. Hundreds of people were involved with Axis, no
doubt, and many of them I am sure experienced the same pain that you did when
you watched the ad. This is not about the product, per se. It's about the
state of the product right now, and the ability of the designers/engineers to
make great stuff.

~~~
jacquesm
So make it specific, tell them what to change about the product, especially if
you liked certain features. It's really easy to say 'this sucks' but that does
not offer an alternative.

And to attack the marketing around the launch is something that shows a lot
about yahoo as a company but does not say anything about the product (it could
be brilliant, for all I know).

All the really good people left Yahoo! long ago, so that's why there is nobody
there with the cojones to say 'No.', or the clout to make it stick.

But in spite of that this product apparently still has some good elements in
it and that alone should be cause for surprise. To me that is a positive
thing, even if they messed up everything else around it because I had long ago
given up on even that being possible.

The rest is just 'business as usual'.

~~~
kamaal
>>All the really good people left Yahoo! long ago

You know what, Its always that the 'real' people leave a company in crisis
'long ago'.

There have been many examples when the 'unreal' people manage to turn the
company around. Chrysler, IBM, Apple have all seen turn around with such
people.

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jrockway
I'm really tired of dcurtis' blog. Its objective seems to be to be the first
to criticize anything and everything. No insight, no critical thought, just
hate.

Yes, this thing is kind of dumb and nobody will use it. But why not relax and
let time take its course? By Friday afternoon, everyone will be back to
forgetting that there is even a company called Yahoo.

~~~
drgath
> By Friday afternoon, everyone will be back to forgetting that there is even
> a company called Yahoo.

All 700+ million users?

~~~
jrockway
699 million of those users are me. Every time I need to log into Flickr, I end
up creating a new account because their password rules are something like
"must be a dictionary word and your birthdate" and I can't ever remember it.

But seriously, the remark was mostly tongue-in-cheek. Yahoo has a userbase,
but their reputation for innovative in-house products is pretty much zero at
this point.

------
DigitalSea
What a coincidence, another baseless Dustin Curtis blog post making it's way
to Hacker News once more. I have nothing personally against Mr Curtis, but
this post just topped the "Twitter is watching everything you do" post Dustin
published a week ago. Is Dustin just sitting at his computer waiting for
people to screw up like Yahoo! so he can publicly vilify them?

Looks like Yahoo! is still the poster child for hate, only second to the PHP
language of course. Fair enough Yahoo! Axis is a crappy product and perhaps
someone should have said something, it's easier said than done. It takes a lot
of failed products to release something good, Google are a prime example of
this, look how many failed products they've released people should have
internally said no to; Google Answers, Google Wave, Google Notebook, Google
Buzz... Just to name a few.

It's a very common thing for an Internet company like Yahoo! knee deep in
bureaucracy to release crappy products, and it appears as though it is a very
common thing to hate on Yahoo!

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mikegirouard
I'll agree that the title of this probably should have been "Someone should
have spoken up a long time ago."

But aside from that, this post showed me the TOS which I had missed earlier. I
can't believe something like that slipped past all the people who worked on
this.

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newbie12
Of course, the Axis Powers were Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist
Italy. Plus the site name's black and steel lettering has vaguely foreboding,
retro-fascist feel. Or maybe it is a Star Wars Imperial vibe. Either way, just
saying that is a little unsettling. It isn't a happy brand.

~~~
smsm42
So, you say Apache Axis are secretly fascists? I knew something is wrong with
that SOAP thing, just couldn't figure it out... Now I see. Good thing I'm
using REST now. There's also a Swedish IT company called Axis Communications,
that is very suspicious too. The CEO is probably Emperor Palpatine in
disguise.

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jscn
Not only does the logo look like Adobe's, it also looks suspiciously like AXIS
Jiu Jitsu's logo (see <http://www.axisjj.com/> \-- take the central triangle,
rotate it left and mirror it on the y-axis.)

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reason
Looks like someone's trying to get another corporate employee fired through
criticism and a lack of practical advice.

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mbrzuzy
I think what irritates me most about Axis is that they had to slap their
obnoxious "Yahoo!" logo on it. It just irks me whenever I see it. The way the
text is slinky link makes me think of children's toys.

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dvhh
A browser extension for a search engine is so 2000's

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thunderrabbit
I just installed Axis add-on to Firefox and my browser instantly slowed to a
crawl. I have about 20 tabs open, but still. I removed it and everything is
back to top speed again.

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a3d6g2f7
The T&C bit made me laugh.

I wonder if they'll fix it in the next 24hrs.

Poor Yahoo.

