Yahoo relaunches new web portal

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Internet search engine Yahoo has launched its new web portal, alongside a $100m advertising campaign, with the company hoping the changes will boost traffic and turn a profit, according to the BBC.

The first change made by the company's new CEO, Carol Bartz, the new portal will also allow third-party services like Facebook to be integrated into the portal. Yahoo believes this openness will increase the companies profits, by allowing users to see their favourite websites and services from within the Yahoo portal.

Going along with the customization aspect of the new portal, Yahoo's $100m advertising campaign uses the catch phrase "It's Y!ou". The campaign will focus on 10 key markets: United States, United Kingdom, India, France, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Canada.

Despite arguments from analysts who say that web users prefer search engines that take them straight to what they want, Yahoo's senior vice-president for Europe, Rich Riley, believes Yahoo's customer still prefer the portal. "The [new] home page is a powerful way to get a view into your life on the internet," said Mr Riley, quoting surveys that suggest 60% of Yahoo users in the UK prefer the portal.

He added, "We expect more traffic, the number of unique users to go up... an increase in audience engagement and more repeat visits."

(1 reply) #1 Ridlas on 23 Sep 2009 - 12:57

So, can this portal be used as a web proxy?

#1.1 thenonhacker on 24 Sep 2009 - 00:48

They are trying be like Netvibes.com

(4 replies) #2 cork1958 on 23 Sep 2009 - 13:10

Yahoo mail especially, has been running so bad lately, I've actually been using my Gmail account!

They sure aren't going to turn much of a profit when their site doesn't even load half the time anymore.

Don't really believe that spending $100 million dollars on advertising is going to do much for them!
There isn't anything "pretty" about their new stuff.

#2.1 +dead.cell on 23 Sep 2009 - 15:19

Must've picked up the advice from Microsoft.

#2.2 lordcanti86 on 23 Sep 2009 - 17:39

dead.cell said,

I dunno. Bing IS picking up marketshare.
The problem for Yahoo! is that people for the most part have stopped caring about portal sites and are caring more about search.

#2.3 +dead.cell on 23 Sep 2009 - 21:09

Wasn't talking about Bing, was talking about Microsoft's load of money spent trying to reshape Vista's image.

#2.4 lordcanti86 on 24 Sep 2009 - 02:01

Ah....I see what you did there

(1 reply) #3 paul_h on 23 Sep 2009 - 13:17

Pedantic: "Yahoo relaunches new web portal" not "Yahoo relaunchs new web portal"

#3.1 +Kirkburn on 23 Sep 2009 - 14:13

paul_h said,

Even More Pedantic: How can you relaunch something that's new? It's either relaunched, or new

(2 replies) #4 TonyLock on 23 Sep 2009 - 13:56

Pointless!

#4.1 bdsams on 23 Sep 2009 - 14:14

i think desperate is a better word

#4.2 P1R4T3 on 24 Sep 2009 - 11:30

useless?

#5 Jugalator on 23 Sep 2009 - 14:51

Now with 25% lighter shades of blue!!

(1 reply) #6 bluewind. on 23 Sep 2009 - 15:06

It looks good. Still not changing it to my homepage though.

#6.1 thenonhacker on 24 Sep 2009 - 00:50

Mine is about:blank in all browsers.

(2 replies) #7 +dead.cell on 23 Sep 2009 - 15:23

Yahoo's $100m advertising campaign uses the catch phrase "It's Y!ou".

#7.1 _dandy_ on 23 Sep 2009 - 16:58

"It's Y!ou" immediately reminded me of SNL's "It's Pat!" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110169/).

I give their catch phrase about the same rating as the movie's rating on IMDB.

#7.2 lordcanti86 on 23 Sep 2009 - 17:41

lolz

It's Y!ou!?....really? at least the Bing adverts make sense

(1 reply) #8 Glendi on 23 Sep 2009 - 15:26

It has come to a point that even if they made the best advertisement ever, Yahoo won't just become what it was.

#8.1 GreyWolfSC on 23 Sep 2009 - 17:21

For me, Yahoo hasn't been "what they once were" since it stopped being a Stanford University project.

#9 WooHoo!!! on 23 Sep 2009 - 16:13

When I think of web portals, Yahoo and MSN are the two that spring to mind. The latter is a bit of a mess, Yahoo seems to get most things right. That's about it really. I'm more a search box page myself and Bing with a nice picture every day does the trick.

#10 lordcanti86 on 23 Sep 2009 - 17:36

..............why?

(1 reply) #11 JSYOUNG571 on 23 Sep 2009 - 17:53

I have had a yahoo account for a while for just extended purposes.. My main account is with Windows Live and I love it. I realized for years I could never have a serious email account with Yahoo at all. 90 percent of the time it has been full of bugs and error. It takes them forever to pull something out of beta. Google use to be the same way with services they had in beta, but their stuff worked. Yahoo has bugs in beta and when it comes out of beta, it has even more bugs. For the new yahoo mail which came out of beta over a year ago, you still have major problems. Slow servers, can't download email pictures without getting red x in them, long wait times on attaching photos, contact list not updating birthdays to a beta calendar, you have a new yahoo mail account that relies on going back to yahoo mail classic to change settings for the new yahoo mail account and you get messages saying pardon our dust we are still in the process of working on these settings for the new yahoo mail services. It has been almost 3 years and yet nothing is completed. The only thing Yahoo has seem to be good with is messenger. They have out dusted Windows Live Messenger in creation and improvement. Even though it has a few bugs it's still a good service for messenger. I hate that Yahoo took over Flickr... I wish Microsoft had taken it and combined it with Windows Live Photos. Yahoo use to have a space page called 360 which had a lot of potential , but due to bug and errors and Flickr not working with it...they closed it after promising that they were going to change it.

Last edited by JSYOUNG571 on 23 Sep 2009 - 18:07

#11.1 Electric Jolt on 23 Sep 2009 - 20:43

Yahoo Messenger is a mess! Yahoo Messenger for Vista was going to be great, it went from slow to fast, with more features coming every few weeks. The ****ty Yahoo Messenger that's built from the ground up that can run on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, sucks! It's a mess, the colors are from Windows XP days, and everybody who uses it HATES Vista and 7. Yahoo Messenger for Mac needs more features, but it's pretty good.

#12 nhozemphtekh on 23 Sep 2009 - 19:21

there are more search engines than users those days.

#13 Magallanes on 23 Sep 2009 - 20:27

So, as far as i can read, the "what's new" is only "third party addins"

meh.

ps :and who is "Diablo Cody"? (is in the top ten search).

#14 Gladiatorus on 23 Sep 2009 - 22:12

I tried adding Neowin to My Favorites an it didn't work

#15 Tech Star on 23 Sep 2009 - 23:28

I hate the new homepage. Sticking with the old one until forced to change.

#16 Shiranui on 24 Sep 2009 - 06:55

Does Jerry Yang spell his name Jerry Y!ang ?

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