The New Yahoo Homepage Showdown

Yahoo released a Web 2.0 version of their homepage this week. You can read more about Web 2.0 and the technology that drives it in my previous post. There is a lot of critique regarding the concept of Web 2.0 on the Internet. I don't much care about what you call it, but the kind of interfaces that people are churning out using AJAX are worth praising.

After Yahoo! email, Yahoo!'s home page has also undergone a makeover. It is currently in preview mode, and may go live soon. Here are my initial thoughts:

Pros:

• The overall length of the page has reduced. The earlier page was quite cluttered. and long.
• The roll-over Mail, Messenger, Launch, etc. buttons to the right are quite useful. Very easy to use, and don't take up space until you want them to.
• The dynamic shifting between different search options (web/images/audio/local etc.) also appears helpful as compared to Google where each option has a separate starting page. (This has been a part of Yahoo's interface for quite some time now.)
• One hidden feature is that the navigation pane on the left is dynamic. Buttons that you click on more often will grow in size to help you locate them.
• The tabbed interface for all services is very intuitive.
• Currently, there are NO advertisements.

Cons:

• Behind all the hoopla, Yahoo! search remains the same.
• I hope they make the homepage customizable (something like My Yahoo!). There are things on this webpage that I will *never* use. Things like the small business portal or the Marketplace tab. This does not mean allowing me to change the color and theme of the page (you can do that by clicking on the 'Page Options' link on the top right).
• Considering the fact that very few people use Yahoo! search, Yahoo! will have to figure out other ways to attract people to their homepage.
• Yahoo has this bad habit of showing obscenely huge and glaring advertisements. Let's hope they figure out a way to tone this down.

The homepage might not be the turning point of Yahoo!'s popularity or market share (22% in April 2006). However, Yahoo! might just have set the ball rolling for dynamic interfaces for portals, where Yahoo has always been the pioneer. It will not be surprising to see other websites follow suit.