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June 25, 2009
Yahoo Redesign, Rebranding As "Your Home On The Web" A Call To The Homeless?
Yahoo plans on shaking things up with a new site redesign and a major rebranding effort. One suggested new tagline/motto is "Your Home On The Web". Guess Carol Bartz - the new CEO - sees us web users as homeless.
Okay that may not be a fair shot but it should have Yahoo thinking a little bit more about a tagline. Most people have their default browser pages set already and to push for grabbing a bigger share of them is a smart idea, but that tagline may not be the way to go.
To me Yahoo has always been a community portal. I have my homepage set to my gmail account as that is my preferred email and the first thing I do when logging online. However, I do go to Yahoo numerous times a day, but for more personal community activities. I have my fantasy leagues to monitor, an area that Yahoo dominates.
Being part of the search community and working in the space I also have to check what is happening with their SERPs. For that I start at the homepage and am occasionally sidetracked by the prominent news box with amusing stories - seems I rarely go there to grab breaking news. But hey when Jon and Kate are fighting, or some celebritard has done something goofy I may click through for a laugh.
Yahoo is a great portal aggregator - pity they cut down Yahoo Groups only to have them resurface. They lost thousands of regular users doing that one.
Yahoo used to be the fun site. Hey it started that way with its cool site listings way back two bubble burst ago. But now that the web is all business, the company is taking itself too seriously. And as a shareholder I appreciate the business perspective, but I think losing sight of what drove them traffic and held their users is a big mistake.
Why not try - Yahoo: Where The Fun Side Of The Web Lives? It may help to bring back that huge following they once had.
Get back to promoting sports, music, games and fun and the search opportunities will grow. Have the search box handy when I want to know sports stats or game cheats or even product information related to my pastimes that I follow in niched groups.
Posted by Frank Watson on June 25, 2009 4:34 PM
Comments
I have to disagree with you here. Y! is my home on the web. Google is my search engine. I think this branding may be accurate and effective. I think SearchEngineWatch may be thinking too much of Y! as the #2 search engine. Maybe their biggest business is being the world's leading portal / homepage.
Gil Reich June 30, 2009 2:19 AM
I agree that Yahoo should be thinking that way too. Forget search and build out the portal aspect and monetize from there.
Aussiewebmaster June 30, 2009 3:11 AM
The above comment is obviously from someone at yahoo
John August 20, 2009 1:32 AM
