Yahoo! launches its new website to reverse declining visitor numbers
The headline of this article alone tells you that Yahoo! is having to act if it wants to remain at the top of the 'unGoogle' pile of web portals.
Yesterday, Yahoo! launched a completely redesigned website as it attempts to battle against declining visitor numbers, the ongoing growth of Google and the activities of many other web portals that have taken a slice out of its market share.
The company is pinning a lot on its latest incarnation too - with a $100 million advertising campaign backing the launch. The changes include a softer coloured logo as shown below.
The new style has been live in the USA for some time now and Yahoo! launched it with the line of "We want to be at the centre of people's lives online."
By far the biggest change to the site is Yahoo! has eventually given in to allowing third party site integration from its home page. Embracing social media technologies is a big part of their move and the site now allows users to access Facebook, Twitter et al from the main portal home.
The changes are certainly marked and, in our opinion, for the better. Overall the site now exudes a much more collaborative and user orientated feel about it. Aesthetically it has been brought to together very nicely indeed and the 'in your face' look of the site we have all become used to (and usually never visited) has been confined to the history books.
Yahoo! still attracts a collosal 570 million users each month though, so the move isn't without its risks. Do Yahoo! have more to lose than to gain? Changing a web users habits isn't something easily done. However, action had to be taken with the recent success of Microsoft Bing. There is little doubt that whilst any impact Bing has had on Google may be classed as 'minimal' - it has made a dent in Yahoo!
Whilst the revamp has been in the aisles for some time it is widely thought to have been driven by the new boss of Yahoo!, Carol Bartz.
Internet analysts have widely condemned the move as worthless, citing the fact that most users use a search engine to go to the precise page they want and that portals are dying out. That misses the point though and returns us to an earlier thought - Yahoo! users are a staid and stable bunch that stick with what they know, and that is very important to Yahoo! because of advertising revenues. So, how will the new format attract 'new' users? Will it merely allow them to retain their existing user base and shore the revenues up? Probably.
In a nutshell, Yahoo! has gone iGoogle. Customisable homepage content and many of the features that Google pioneered have made their way on to the new face of the website. The people at Yahoo quoted a very interesting statistic (if it is to believed anyway!). They say that surveys indicate 60% of UK users want a single portal for organising their life online. Really? We find that very questionable to say the least (apart from which it could be argued that they already have such a place with iGoogle!).
Our opinion? Fail. It is doomed to fail. It's simply too little too late and the market leader has stolen such a lead that Yahoo! have little hope in capitalising on a solid user base for increased revenues. It might delay the storm - but it's still heading for the shores of Yahoo! Island in the future.
Same old stuff?
is there really anything new or unique about the new Yahoo! portal? We're struggling to find it.
News ported from other sites, widget type interfaces to allow you to use social media tools without leaving the Yahoo! home, links that let you visit other sites instead of relying solely on Yahoo! - well it's hardly ground breaking.
That said, there is a generic argument in business (very popular with Sir Alan Sugar of Amstrad and Apprentice fame as it happens) that you shouldn't not do something just because someone else already does it. A lot of successes in business come from newcomers who merely implement an old idea in a better way to the existing market players.
Unfortunately we don't see that with Yahoo! This is a company that makes a mere $141 million profit on revenues of over $1.57 billion. That sort of yield isn't something the stock market likes and investors in particular might be looking for wiser investments if the Yahoo! brand doesn't start to show a quick return from what is a very expensive rebrand.
Think of it this way - they made $141 million profit. Yet they're now spending $100 million on the advertising alone for this redesign. That's a huge gamble. We accept that you can't stand still and action is better than accepting defeat - but we'll be following this one closely and we can't foresee a happy ending.
