June 5, 2008

Yahoo's SearchMonkey Launches Public Gallery

Yahoo's SearchMonkey has launched the Yahoo Search Gallery, which displays applications built by third party websites for their search results. Beginning today, the Search Gallery can be accessed by clicking the Customize dropdown menu from the search results page. Also, today developers and site owners may begin to share their applications even if they haven't been selected for the Search Gallery.

Yahoo is holding a contest for SearchMonkey applications. The deadline for submissions is June 14.

What do you think of SearchMonkey? Will it improve Yahoo's search results? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 5, 2008

Yahoo Launches Fire Eagle: Location Sharing

Yahoo has joined the companies working on helping people stay connected through location technology, the company announced today. They have launched Fire Eagle - as a sub domain of Yahoo.net.

An information page explains the beta here:

"Fire Eagle shares your location information with services and applications that you choose. This location information is obtained from the web or your mobile device.

Information Collection and Use Practices

* Fire Eagle collects your current location information from location-enabled devices or services that you authorize. The specificity of the location data collected by Fire Eagle (e.g., city, street, latitude/longitude, etc.) depends on the authorized device or service that you link with Fire Eagle. o You can view the service(s) or device(s) updating your location, the location indicated, and the time passed since collection at the “My Locations” tab. * Fire Eagle shares your location information with application(s) that you authorize to obtain your information from the Fire Eagle database. o If you authorize an application to obtain your location data from the Fire Eagle database, you may go to the “My Applications” tab and choose the specificity of location data available to the application from the drop-down list. o In approximately 45 days, you will be sent an email to reauthorize the sharing of your location data with your Fire Eagle enabled application(s). If you do not respond to this email within 10 days, authorization will be automatically revoked; however, you can later reauthorize your application(s) to interact with Fire Eagle’s location database.

Practices Regarding Your Ability to Update or Delete Information

* If you want to prevent all applications from reading your location from the Fire Eagle database, go to the “My Privacy” tab and click “Hide Me.” Your current location will continue to be stored by Fire Eagle. * If you want to prevent a single application from reading your location or providing the Fire Eagle database with your location, go to the “My Applications” tab and delete the application. * If you want to remove previously stored location data from the Fire Eagle database, go to the “My Privacy” tab and click “Delete my location info.” The “Delete my location info” action will have no effect on information you previously authorized Fire Eagle to share with Fire Eagle enabled applications.

Other

* When you use Fire Eagle, you are subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service."

Posted by Frank Watson at 6:33 PM | Permalink

November 5, 2007

Yahoo To Kickstart College Students' Careers

Yahoo is launching a social networking service for college students to help them find careers, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Kickstart as the product will be called is designed to help college students network with professionals who can help them with internships, jobs and career advise. A combination of Linked In and Facebook features, Kickstart will help college students build their own networks with future employers and people who can help them with their post college futures.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:33 PM | Permalink

July 2, 2007

Yahoo SmartAds: Super-Targeted Display Ads

Yahoo has launched a new SmartAds display ad unit that uses behavioral, demographic and geographic targeting capabilities to create ads from submitted elements based on the user.

SmartAds expand on the targeting capabilities of search ads, and make it easier for advertisers to customize ads for multiple users by allowing an advertiser or agency to submit art and provide a direct feed of offers to Yahoo, which will create an ad from the best combination of components based on the targeted user.

SmartAds makes heavy use of "customer insights" extracted from data Yahoo keeps on visitors, including their shopping, searching and Web surfing behaviors, as well as registration information and location data. Ads will be sold on both CPC and CPM pricing models, and will roll out first on Yahoo's travel sites. Retail and automotive are the next likely verticals, according to ClickZ.

If Yahoo can successfully match ads to users based on search and browsing behavior, and make the process scalable and easy to use, it should gain some traction from both search marketers looking for more inventory and richer ad units; and from display advertisers looking for better targeting.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:32 AM | Permalink

April 10, 2007

Yahoo China Launches Social Networking Service

Yahoo China has launched a social networking service called Yahoo Space, according to a Reuters report.

The move is part of Yahoo China's plan to focus on its online community this year in cooperation with Alibaba, which provides an online trading platform, according to Reuters. Alibaba took over Yahoo China in November 2005.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:46 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2007

Yahoo Adds Another Rep To Help Online Forum Communities

First there was YahooSarah - an online persona who helped forum communities with announcements and assistance with YPN and Panama?Overture issues - now we also have YahooPete.

Yahoo's involvement in online communities and social networks has grown of late and the introduction of YahooPete displays further commitment on the part of Yahoo to develop social networking.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:37 AM | Permalink

July 12, 2006

Google Pages & Yahoo Geocities Phishing Attacks

We learn from VNUnet.com that there are phishing scams on Google Pages and we also learn from Slashdot that Yahoo's Geocities has a similar issue. A email goes out telling people they can win a "$500 cash prize, and that the money can be paid automatically if they click on the embedded web link."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:53 AM | Permalink

March 16, 2006

Google And Yahoo To Sell Branded PCs?

Via Garrett French, a Silicon Valley Watcher article that says Google and Yahoo are in talks with Wyse Technology to build out low-priced PC. Reportedly, Google and Yahoo are "interested in using low-priced PC-compatible computers to capture millions of users in developing countries."

There has been a lot of past speculation that Google working on its own operating system named Goobuntu, which Google denied. Also, back in March, Google Hired Microsoft's Top Windows Architect but then again denied rumors of building and selling computers. Makes you wonder what type of comment Google will release based on this news.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:30 AM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Yahoo Forges Ad Partnership with Yellowpages.com

Yellowpages.com advertisers now get extended reach with placement within Yahoo! Local and Yahoo! Yellow Pages. This agreement expands on existing agreements Yahoo had with AT&T Yellow Pages and BellSouth Advertising and Publishing. Pamela Parker has more on today's deal over at ClickZ.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:01 PM | Permalink

Get Ready for YahooPhone!

In a story first reported by the Wall Street Journal, numerous blogs including Threadwatch and PaidContent.org out that Yahoo and SBC/Cingular are planning to develop a Yahoo branded cell phone (built by Nokia) that will also include an MP3 player and camera.

SBC and Yahoo already partner on a broadband service. PaidContent says that the phone will be out next year and sell for $200-$300. Additional posts from Inside Google and vnunet.com.

Postscript: The official news release is also available.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:08 PM | Permalink

October 3, 2005

A New Alternative to Google Print

The Open Content Alliance is launching today, with plans to make thousands of books, multimedia files and other materials freely searchable and accessible and online. Unlike Google Print, however, anyone adding content to the Open Content Alliance must have permission from copyright holders.

Gary has more on the new initiative, including comments from one of Google Print's harshest critics, in A New Digital Library Alliance Makes its Debut.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:36 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2005

Yahoo Acquires Konfabulator

Both the AP and News.com report that Yahoo is acquiring Konfabulator, a developer of small javascript tools (aka widgets) that run on Windows and Macintosh systems. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Widgets are small apps created by both company and third-party developers that allow users to have easy access to info (local weather, traffic, lottery numbers), services (RSS aggregator, raise/lower speaker volume, calculator, etc.), games, and more (monitor eBay feedback ratings). Plenty of "search" widgets, too.

You can browse and download all widgets here.

From the AP: The widgets will draw upon information and services already on Yahoo's Web site without requiring a browser to see it. The material instead is displayed through an animated icon on the computer desktop. To help popularize the widgets, Yahoo will give away the Konfabulator software that empowers the applications. Konfabulator had been charging $20 for the software.

I just downloaded the Konfabulator app (8.8 MB for Windows) and selected a few widgets. I was up and running in a matter of minutes. Konfabulator sits in the Windows system tray for quick access.

With all of the licensed content Yahoo offers, widgets could be one way for users to access some of it.

Widgets could also give Yahoo a new spot to offer paid advertising. For example, a widget with sports scores could also offer an ad to buy tickets or merchandise for a local team.

The biggest challenge Yahoo faces is getting web users (non-tech geek types) to know about and understand what what Konfabulator provides and then to take the next step to download, run the app, and select widgets. Bottom line? Not easy.

Postscript: More info available on the Yahoo Widgets page.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:44 PM | Permalink

May 9, 2005

New: Visualize Yahoo Results with Grokker

One information visualization tool that's received plenty of attention over the past few years is Groxis from Grokker.

Today, the NY Times reports that you can now use Groxis to visualize Yahoo Search results for free and WITHOUT having to download the Groxis client. If anyone is interested in checking out this new and easily accessible service, it's me. It's been a year or so since I used Groxis and at that point it was interesting but didn't seem to add much value to my searching. I think it's time to give it another look.

Until now the company has sold a $49 program for use with Windows-based and Macintosh computers. Beginning this week, the company will rely instead on revenue from advertisements placed by the Yahoo ad placement service.

The Groxis relationship with Yahoo is not exclusive, but Mr. Pittman [Groxis CEO] said Yahoo had been quicker than its competitor, Google, in creating a standard way to place relevant ads next to Grokker's circular search result maps.

To access Grokker's new web version, go here.

The full Grokker client software remains available for $49. Site-licensed versions for the enterprise and education communities remain available.

More about Groxis in: + Groxis moves up in the world (via SiliconValley.com + Groxis Launches Grokker E.D.U. for the Education Market (via Info Today) + Groxis Ships Version 2 of Its Visual Search Tool (via Info Today)

Of course, Groxis isn't the only info visualization tool out there. Here are some other resources to try:

+ NewsisFree offers News Map's for seven news categories.

+ Amazon, Google, and LiveJournal visualization tools from TouchGraph

+ SmartMoney's Map of the Market A very cool and useful way of looking at stock market data. Access to some maps is free while others are fee-based.

+ Google News Map (Note: Osinga works for Google's engineering team, and this is part of his blog)

+ Client software: Personal Brain

+ Hoover's via anacubis Visualize some of the business data that Hoover's makes available for free.

You can also use anacubis to visualize Amazon and Google.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:24 AM | Permalink

April 7, 2005

Wikipedia Gets Support from Yahoo

More Yahoo mojo? (-:

We read a few weeks ago about how Google might help the Wikipedia by providing server space and bandwidth.

A few minutes ago I spotted this news release about Yahoo announcing or perhaps better said, enhancing a relationship with the Wikipedia Foundation. Yahoo will provide Wikipedia with hardware and other resources.

"Yahoo! has been Wikipedia's longest-standing corporate supporter and with this dedication of resources we will be able to offer Wikipedia content to a growing worldwide audience, while maintaining full flexibility in our ability to expand relationships and freely distribute our works." --Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikimedia Foundation

Also, the news release mentions that in the next few weeks a Wikipedia shortcut will be available on Yahoo (in several languages) that will place Wikipedia content directly onto the results page. Presently, a shortcut provides content from the Columbia Encyclopedia directly onto the results page. Here's an example. Also, a look at a Wikipedia/Yahoo shortcut from Yahoo France.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 24, 2005

Yahoo Releases Creative Commons Search Tool

Yahoo has partnered with Creative Commons and released a new resource that restricts a web search (using the Yahoo web index) to content available with a Creative Commons license. You're also able to limit a query to find content available for commercial purposes and/or content that can modified, adapted, or built upon. Most of Yahoo's advanced search syntax appears to work. More in this post.

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, this is the largest one-stop search tool on the web to find material with a Creative Commons license on the web.

Btw, the Creative Commons site also offers a search engine that's powered by Nutch.org open source technology.

Any content creator (photographer, musician, blogger, etc.) can share some or all of their work with others using a Creative Content license. Think of it as a more flexible type of copright license. 11 types of CC licenses are available. If you're not familiar with how it all works, this page provides a great overview.

From the Yahoo news release: The launch of Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons is an important step in a broader movement to enable people to find, share and expand content within a new, more flexible set of copyright laws that ultimately enable the creation of a remix culture and new generation of creative works."

Postscript: Chris wrote about the Creative Commons a couple of weeks ago, describing the mission of the organization and how to find content using its open-source search engine in Finding Free Content in the Creative Commons.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 7, 2005

Are VoIP Services on the Horizon for Search Providers?

In January, Danny blogged about speculation (at a fever pitch for a few days) about Google launching a VoIP telephone service. Today, Jim Hu at News.com calmly discusses what Google, Yahoo, and MSN are or are not up to in the article: Search giants hear voices.

+ Google has not announced plans to offer VoIP service, and declined to comment for this story.

+ "We are definitely looking at the space closely," Yahoo spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten said. "We're figuring out how to enhance and expand into the voice space by leveraging those properties." Yahoo has already launched a PC-based voice service in the United Kingdom. Microsoft plans to embed voice calling into its enterprise instant-messaging software.

+ AOL plans to launch an Internet phone service this month.

Postscritpt: See also Google window-shops for VoIP.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 2, 2005

Yahoo Japan Launches Blogging Service

Yahoo Japan has launched a free blogging service according to the News.com article: Yahoo Japan launches blog beta.

Yahoo Japan Blogs users can post both text and up to 2GB of images. Yahoo Korea has offered a blogging service since August 2003.

"Yahoo has a deep history in the online self-publishing and communications space, and we continually evaluate market opportunities where we can leverage our assets to fill a market need," Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako said. "We have not made any announcements specific to Yahoo offering blogging services in the U.S. to date."

MSN Spaces was available fin Japan prior to its December 2004 global release.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 31, 2005

Yahoo Plans to License Financial Data

It looks like Yahoo plans to open up a new revenue stream by licensing stock quotes and other financial data.

ZDNet's story: Yahoo to feed its own stock ticker service and the Marketwatch.com story: Yahoo Finance builds licensing biz, offer details.

Yahoo! has been using financial data (quotes, charts, etc.) supplied by Reuters. Now, Yahoo will collect and disseminate this type of data using direct feeds from various stock exchanges and other sources. The service will be called "Quotes from Yahoo Finance."

"This is just about our taking control of the data business ourselves and extending that to other platforms," said Craig Forman, Yahoo's vice president of information and finance.

Forbes has said that they will license data from the "Quotes from Yahoo Finance" service.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 26, 2005

Gambling on Yahoo!

Both the BBC and ZDNetUK report that online betting will be available in March on the Yahoo UK and Ireland site via a joint venture with UK-based betting exchange BetFair. The service will be called Yahoo! Betting.

The exchange will be accessible through the sports and finance sections of Yahoo as well as from other areas across the portal.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 21, 2005

New My Yahoo Ticker For Windows Taskbar

Using My Yahoo to track stocks or read feeds? Now there's a little My Yahoo Ticker you can get that will stream material to you via your Windows taskbar. Email notifcation, weather forecasts and more are also provided. There's also some search capabilities built in. My Yahoo! on Your Desktop from the Yahoo Search Blog provides some more details.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 13, 2005

Yahoo Testing Sponsored Links at Yahoo Auctions

A brief post on the AuctionBytes web sites mentions that Yahoo is running a test (this week only) and placing sponsored links inside Yahoo! Auctions listings. More in the story: Yahoo Inserts 'Sponsored Links' Ads Inside Auction Listings and this page on the Yahoo Auctions site.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 5, 2005

Yahoo Health Beta Focuses on Searchability and Personalization

The Media Post article: Web Portals Beef Up Health Sections, discusses a new MSN Health and Fitness section and a Q4, 2004 beta release of an expanded health section at Yahoo.

Yahoo!'s key focus for its beta health site is searchability, and on the beta site, the search function is prominently featured. "With this new site, you're going to see search, you're going to see more personalization, and you're going to see more integration of content and community," Yahoo! spokesman Dan Berger said. Berger declined to comment on when the testing would be concluded and the final site launched.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

December 17, 2004

Yahoo and Verity Announce Partnership

Some news that spans the enterprise and web search worlds. It's also another example of the increasing importance of federated search tools.

Yahoo! and Verity are partnering to create an application called Verity Enterprise Web Search. Web results will also contain sponsored listings. Verity will share the revenue from the sponsored links with Yahoo.

...with a single query - simultaneously search the high-value information in internal repositories as well as all of the relevant Web content indexed by Yahoo! Search...Search results from internal content repositories and the Web are merged and ranked for relevance, eliminating the need to submit multiple queries to internal sources and public search engines, then manually assimilating results to put the information into perspective.

More in the news release and this eWeek story.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

December 15, 2004

Yahoo Launches Video Search Prototype, New Media RSS Format

Yahoo! has just unveiled a video search beta available via a link on its Yahoo! Next site. The company is also introducing a new RSS-based video enclosure for producers to include with video content. Using the enclosure will help Yahoo (and others) discover and index media content. Much more about Media RSS, why Yahoo says it's needed, and some of the organizations Yahoo is working with here.

Video search is not a new concept, AltaVista (now part of Yahoo) has offered a video search tool for several years.

Yahoo Video Search leverages technology developed both internally and and via acquisition (AltaVista, Inktomi, etc).

The video search tools that remain available on AltaVista and AllTheWeb are now using the new Yahoo Video Search technology.

Yahoo Video Search also offers an Advanced Interface: + Limit by format: AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, Windows, Media Real + Size (small, medium, large) + Duration (Less than or greater than one minute) + Domain + SafeSearch Filter Note: The formats are the what's also available at AltaVista.

For more about video and other multimedia search tools, see these blog posts: + Searching Television via Closed-Captioning + Video Search: Google, Yahoo, and MSN + Search Meets TV + The Next Search Titan: Comcast?

Posted by Gary Price at 8:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

December 7, 2004

Yahoo Makes Acquisition

Chris Gaiter reports in the LA Times that Yahoo has acquired WUF Networks. This Redwood City company provides, to let consumers move their songs, photos and other digital content from their computers to devices like mobile phones." Financial terms were not disclosed.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

December 6, 2004

Yahoo Japan Begins Earthquake Info Service

Here's a neat idea that could save users time and aggravation accessing important information.

Kyodo News reports that beginning Tuesday, Yahoo Japan will place up-to-the minute earthquake information for quakes measursing 3 or above on the Japanese seismic intensity scale at the top of the Yahoo Japan home page.

In the event of an earthquake, Yahoo Japan will provide the information in the upper part of the top page of its portal site for about one minute. As for other pages, banner ads will temporarily turn into bulletin boards on the quake.

The article goes on to mention that this is the first of its kind service in Japan. The information will also be available via mobile phone.

Let's see if Google's Japanese site announces a similar type of service soon.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

December 2, 2004

MSN's Third Portal To Gain Blogs; Where's The Blog Search?

MSN is now offering blogging space through its new MSN Spaces service, making it the third major portal to jump into this area. The first? Google, of course.

Google a portal? Sure, a stealth portal. It's got all the traditional portal features of email, search and free home pages -- or at least the successor to personal home pages, blogs. You just don't see them all displayed in a traditional portal format.

My Google Buys Blogging Company - But Why? article from Feb. 2003 looks at the issue of blogs as a portal feature and Google heading down that path. One of the predictions in it, which was obvious to many, was that once Google knocked over the blog domino, other portals would follow.

AOL launched its AOL Journals service in September 2003. Now with MSN in the space, that leaves just Yahoo among the majors.

Yahoo still has the GeoCities personal home pages service (valued at $3.6 billion when acquired in 1999 -- in contrast, Google likely paid only a few million for Blogger). But I'm sure we'll eventually see Yahoo gain a blogging system as well.

All this is great for those seeking to build blogs, though it has nothing to do with search. What none of the majors yet offer is an actual blog search service.

Yahoo is the closest now, making it at least possible to search to find blog feeds but not through actual blog entries. MSN has promised an actual blog search engine to come out later this year. Google's also said last year that a blog search would come, though it gave no timeline about when. Aside from the majors, we list a number of other blog search engines here.

For more details of the new MSN Spaces service, see this ClickZ article: MSN Enters Blogging Fray with "Spaces". And as an aside, Microsoft blogvangelist Robert Scoble says he's sticking with the Radio UserLand service and provides a wrap-up of reaction to the new Microsoft entry.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

November 18, 2004

SBC Will Offer Access to Some Yahoo Services via Television

More convergence. This time involving television and wireless access to some Yahoo services.

I'm wouldn't doubt that Yahoo television search (keyword access to actual television programs) and another venue for Overture advertising, especially local ads, is also in the works.

Jeffry Bartash reports in the article: SBC and Yahoo team up in TV, wireless that the companies have announced a deal where customers can acess some Yahoo services via their tv set and wireless devices. Look for it to begin sometime in 2005.

"Customers want communications that revolve around them, not the other way around," said Edward Whitacre, SBC's chairman, in a statement.

Instead of transferring an address book from one device to another, for example, a customer would create a list in his SBC Yahoo account and be able to access it from any device -- laptops, wireless phones or even TV sets.

Similarly, customers could check e-mail, voice mail or faxes from any one device.

Once SBC rolls out its television service, customers could set up programs to record from their work computer or even from a cell phone. They could also set parental controls from any device to monitor their children's Web-surfing, viewing and listening habits.

"This alliance advances the SBC strategy to evolve the 'digital home' into the 'digital lifestyle,' " Whitacre said. "What you see on your SBC Yahoo Internet home page is coming to a TV set or wireless phone near you."

SBC and Yahoo have partnered on a broadband service for several years.

More in this news release.

A few weeks ago, Nathan at InsideGoogle speculated about how Google might be developing "television" applications. I also posted about several tools that currently allow you to search tv content.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

November 16, 2004

Yahoo Provides Access To Library Records

Via the Yahoo Search Blog, news that a special version of the Yahoo Toolbar now allows you to search across two million library holdings through a cooperative project with OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center.

Searching library records is a favorite topic of Gary's, and he's covered this in past posts such More Full Text Books and The Virtual Reference. You can expect him to revisit this new Yahoo initiative when he's back from the Internet Librarian conference, where the partnership was also unveiled.

Postscript: Gary's sent me a few links

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

November 2, 2004

Semel: Yahoo Working on Desktop Search

No surprise here.

While speaking at an investment conference on Monday, Yahoo's CEO Terry Semel said his company is building a desktop search tool.

"Yahoo is working on it. In short course, we'll have a desktop solution as well." He did not say specifically when Yahoo's desktop search program would be released.

Semel also told the audience that he plans to stay at Yahoo. Recently, there was some speculation in the press that he might be a contender for the CEO position at Disney.

and in other Yahoo news...

+ Yahoo has named Lloyd Braun, recently chairman of ABC Entertainment Television Group, to lead Yahoo's media and entertainment division. More in this Reuters article and the news release.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 14, 2004

Roll Your Own Yahoo Specialty Search Engine

Nice from Tara Calishain: Searchroller For Yahoo. Want to make a subject-specific search engine that brings back results from only certain web sites? This workaround she's created makes it easy via Yahoo.

Now if the search engines themselves would just directly offer such features! Ask Jeeves told me this may come later this year as an expansion to the personal search features it's recently launched. Yahoo's also told me this is something it's considering as when its own new search memory features get expanded.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 28, 2004

New Yahoo A-Z Index Page

Along with the new My Yahoo beta release and the tweaks to the Yahoo home page that we've mentioned today, the company has also made a new A-Z index page of all Yahoo available online.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yahoo, How About A Feed Search Tab?

I've only begun to play with the new My Yahoo Beta that Gary blogged about earlier. I was excited that it was now possible to easily search for just web feeds, rather than having to do an entire web search and hope that feeds might also show up in association with a web page listing. But man, what a pain to get to this.

When you're in your My Yahoo page, you need to click on the Add Content button you'll see just below the search box. That brings you to an entirely new box where you can search for just web feed content. Below that box is also a browsable directory of feeds. Alternatively, you can jump directly to the page via this link: My Yahoo! - Add Content.

Now how about making web feed search its own tab, similar to the others listed on Yahoo's pure search interface? You can use advanced search to narrow your query to just RSS/XML content, but it's not as nice as the new feed search and directory offered from within My Yahoo.

By the way, New Beta Version of My Yahoo! is a good rundown from Yahoo itself about the new features, on its blog. Jeremy Zawodny, who works for Yahoo and a big feed advocate there, provides his own take here: New My Yahoo Beta, Featuring RSS and Atom.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our forum thread: NEW: MyYahoo! Beta Upgrade.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 27, 2004

My Yahoo Beta Launches, Cosmetic Changes to Yahoo Home Page

Reuters and the AP with on some cosmetic changes coming to the Yahoo and My Yahoo home page.

According to Reuters the changes will be available as beta releases late Monday or Tuesday and "will generally be available" in the next few weeks.

The AP article has info on what you'll see: + "The most visible changes include the addition of a 'music' button across the top of the home page and the removal of a button that directed traffic to the company's help wanted site, HotJobs."

+ "Yahoo's redesign also includes a new search tab for the site's Web directory and a regularly updated feature that will report on which topics are generating the most search requests."

My Yahoo I just noticed that a beta version of "All New My Yahoo" is online. All of the new features are listed here. Lot's of attention to RSS/ATOM capabilities (now out of beta) along with a new searchable directory containing more than 150,000 content sources (including RSS feeds) to add you your My Yahoo page.

Want to discuss? Please visit our forum thread: NEW: MyYahoo! Beta Upgrade.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack