Yahoo! Bids to get its cool back
There was a time when Yahoo! was the portal everyone went to for search and social groups online. Sadly Google stole the company's crown and now Yahoo! has even slipped into third place in search behind Microsoft's Bing engine. Now though Yahoo! is releasing new upgraded services in an effort to make itself cool again with users and relevant to the modern age.
Their aim is to make Yahoo! services more personal for their 600 million users in an effort not to lose more customers to Google and Mincrosoft. Chief Products Officer Blake Irving said in a statement this week "Yahoo in three years is a global series of web experiences across a variety of different devices that gives people what they want; the content, the folks that they care about.  There is a bunch of bringing cool back to Yahoo saying a lot of the things that you want to do on the web are here."
New features, services and upgrades the company have announced include...
- a version of Yahoo mail that is faster, has an improved user interface, blocks spam and integrates with Facebook and Twitter
- a fresh layout in Yahoo Search that presents more content around entertainment and news searches
- an Yahoo iPad and tablet app due for release in 2010/2011
- revamped ad formats
- connected TV partnerships with video-on-demand content sources, social networks, games and shopping
The company's focus will be on connected devices such as smartphones, tablets and set-top boxes. It's a smart move for the company which has struggled in recent years to stay relevant and maintain market share. Recent moves to use the Bing search engine on Yahoo! began recently and there has been extensive talk about takeovers by Microsoft.
It will be interesting to see how Yahoo! maintains its customer base and market share when they have slipped behind so much in recent years. It will bea struggle but Yahoo!'s services are still some of the very best around.
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YESSSSS! We did it! :)
It’s finally official! We won the choice to keep our Classic Groups! The new remodel is going to be offered as an option to choose, not something we have to opt out of!
Below is the link to the video which is the unprinted part of Carol Bartz’s interview with USA Today, and the first question is about Yahoo Groups.
It proves it without a doubt, that we did win our fight to keep Classic Groups! I’m not sure why the video part of the interview wasn’t transcribed with the rest of it, that would have helped greatly, but at least it’s now here for all to see. (Sigh of relief).
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid42806360001?bctid=628449885001
Brenda
Nightowl >8#
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/
Go read this!
http://gigaom.com/2010/10/04/yahoo-quashes-groups-redesign-in-wake-of-user-backlash/
We made the news!
YATANIC, ICEBERG! DEAD AHEAD!
For weeks we’ve been striving
To save Classic Groups.
Since Yahoo just wants us
To jump through their hoops.
A group was created
To further our goal.
We threw ourselves into
The cause, heart and soul
There were 100 members
In no time at all,
All joining together
To stop this downfall.
We wrote Yahoo’s Execs,
And the media too,
Even told Advertisers
What they planned to do.
We feverishly worked,
Though it was a gamble,
While in her blog, Layla,
Continued to ramble.
“Stop this remodelâ€,
We shouted as one,
“You have no idea,
Of the damage you’ve done!
You’re destroying our archives!
Post numbers are gone,
Threading is chaos,
And our subjects are gone!
We don’t want your silly
Grey grinning ghosts!
Bring back our home page,
It mattered the most!
Our photos are scrambled,
Some even are missing,
Why are you doing this?
Our pleas you’re dismissing!
We simply can’t function
With your new “Yabookâ€!
Just give us an opt out,
To keep Classic Look!
Things that were private,
Have been compromised!
Members lists show,
And even archives!
We have no control of our
Management functions,
Some people are thinking
Of filing injunctions!
The thousands of posts
In the Suggestion Thread,
Are all going ignored,
Can’t you hear what we’ve said?
STOP THIS REMODEL,
We don’t want this mess!
You’ve upset us all,
And you’re causing distress!
If we wanted Facebook,
Then we would be there!
Our groups are our “homesâ€
Do you even care?
You came with a bulldozer,
You’re crushing them flat!
Don’t do this, we’d rather
Just stay where we’re at!
Don’t you know thousands
Of users are leaving?
And all of the rest are
Just sitting here grieving?
Please listen to us,
While we are still here,
Because if you don’t,
Then surely I fear,
No one will be left,
To hear what you say
We’ll be in our lifeboats,
All paddling away
Cause we see the iceberg,
And before it can hit,
We’ve all made our plans,
We’re ready to quit.
So please take a minute,
Slow down and think?
Because your Yatanic,
Well, it’s doomed to sink.â€
By Nightowl >8#
(Owner of http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/)
GROUPS USERS, TAKE NOTE!
USA TODAY ASKS US: WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK CAROL BARTZ?
“USA Today CEO Forum plans to interview Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. And we’d like your help.
Do you have any questions you’d like them to ask?
Let us know what you want to know about Yahoo, Bartz, prospects for the Internet and digital media, and how CEOs can effectively manage companies in a period of
such rapid change.
We’ll ask Bartz as many of your questions as we can — and we’ll post her best
answers on usatoday.com.” By David Lieberman
Here’s our chance, go and post the questionsto them about why is she destroying Yahoo Groups and why she won’t listen to thousands of users planning a mass exodus if the remodel continues!
Let’s get our concerns out in the media!!!!
We’re making progress in our quest to save Classic Yahoo Groups. People are starting to listen! We just have to keep on protesting and not let up!
Nightowl >8#
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/
(Created to save Yahoo Classic Groups or help them to find an alternative)
I’d like to know what she has against the disabled. As a disabled veteran this mess has increased my pain levels to the point that I have had to take extra meds in order to function. What used to be a simple task is now complex. Is she so stupid that she doesn’t understand that Yahoo was great the way it was. If I wanted twitter or Facebook I’d be posting on them. She may not think we’re her customers but we’re the ones who buy from the advertisers and I’ve written many telling them just what I think of this SNAFU (Military term that means Situation Normal All F*cked Up!) she has created.
> Their aim is to make Yahoo! services more personal for their 600
> million users in an effort not to lose more customers to Google and
> Microsoft… “Yahoo in three years …gives people what they want; the
> content, the folks that they care about. There is a bunch of bringing
> cool back to Yahoo saying a lot of the things that you want to do on
> the web are here.â€
I can’t speak for the rest of these projected “Web experiences”, but what Yahoo has done to its Yahoo Groups discussion boards is depriving an important segment of its membership the ability to do what *we* want to do on the Web.
I find it strange that Mr Irving would brag about how many users and how much quality content Yahoo Groups has, and then think he has to mess with success. The changes that are being made to Ygroups not only do not turn the service into a convincing Facebook clone, but render it completely unfit for what its users actually do with it.
“Groups” (a misnomer, and becoming a costly one) are the descendents of Listservs, Usenet Newsgroups, and services such as oneList and eGroups. These electronic mailing-lists (to give them their proper name) are about *topics*, not people. Their users subscribe to them because they share common interest in a particular subject. They may or may not share a common interest in each other. We’ve made friends through e-lists, to be sure, but that wasn’t why we joined.
We formed or joined our Groups in order to discuss things like Ancient Rome, prehistoric mammals, the movie “Avatar”, various role-playing games, falconry, miniature horses, senior dogs needing homes, the impact of 9/11…one group per subject, each dedicated to that subject and providing resources (file uploads, images, links…) related to that subject.
If you ask a librarian (knowledgeable person) for a book on falconry (source of information), you expect to end up with information about falconry. Now, suppose you make this request and she hands you the White Pages? You will be left pretty much where Yahoo Groups subscribers are now that the Powers That Be have decided to turn Groups (a source of information) into YaBook (a collection of personalities).
Post titles used to say “[Subject] posted by [sender]”. Now it’s [sender’s avatar] “[sender] posted [subject] at [timestamp]”. The focus has gone from the What to the Who…and we’re not on Groups to talk about the Who. That’s what social networks are for.
Yahoo has forgotten this difference, and in the process it is driving away many, many of its most literate and dedicated members. All that quality content…? That we wrote…? Headed for Google Groups, Ning, Topica, message-boards and other venues as we speak; places where our message archives are not at the mercy of a product team that sees nothing more in them but idle “conversations”.
We’ll see how Yahoo Anything does when there’s no one left but the tweeting tweens.
CAROL BARTZ IN PROCESS OF DESTROYING YAHOO GROUPS…YAHOO’S BIGGEST MEMBER GENERATOR
By Bonnie – member of modsandmembers@yahoogroups.com
Ms. Bartz (and evidently the rest of newbie Yahoo management) erroneously thinks that its Yahoo Groups are filled with masses of clueless teenagers who want only to share fashion tips or snapshots of picnics. See their examples and advertising as a verification of this.
There would be absolutely no reason for most people I know to visit any Yahoo website if the Yahoo Groups did not exist. It is a hugely valuable product/portal. It is the main reason for anyone to have a Yahoo ID and Yahoo Email account. But, the Yahoo execs have never put a high value on 2 things that are essential to the success of its Yahoo Groups:
1. Creative talent of group owners (the individual founders who conceive each group)
2. Endless passion of group moderator-leaders (the active promoters and writers on a daily basis)
Without these two jewels, there would be FEW MEMBERS. They are what makes Yahoogroups one of the world’s largest resources of user created information content.
Yahoo doesn’t value this vast resource of INFORMATION CONTENT that brings new members to Yahoo Groups every day. As proof of this, I offer up one simple fact:
“Yahoo Groups message archive Search has failed since February 2009. Even when it did work, it was a pitiful single word search without advanced features such as “quotes” or boolean!”
Why have I stayed with Yahoo over the years? Up until a month ago, I had high hopes that Yahoo Groups would eventually provide good service. But, I am sure this will never happen now, since a new self-destruction campaign is in process at Yahoo Groups.
BACKGROUND:
I own more than 50 active professional technical groups, more than a decade old with many thousands of members. I’ve been able to thrive through changes from usenet to a listserver, to onelist to egroups, and through yahoogroups.
EXAMPLE:
One of my world class technical groups has 9115 members and 10 full time moderators… 300 messages per month, and every message is approved by a human moderator. This group has forged a whole new category in the communications electronics field… to the extent that the name of the group has actually become the new technical word (verb and noun) to describe this new field of endeavor. It is the first place to go for researchers in this field.
NOT A SOCIAL NETWORK:
These Yahoo Groups are NOT Social Networks…
these groups are Informational Resource Networks.
INFORMATIONAL RESOURCE NETWORK:
Yahoo’s Ms. Bartz should recognize what a unique valuable property it has with Yahoo Groups as Informational Resource Networks (IRN), and trumpet it to the world! This network is the envy of many internet companies. Yahoo should make better tools to utilize it, or spin it off for profit. But, it should not be destroyed by this season’s noob Yahoo execs to simply pump their options.
MASS EXODUS FROM YAHOO GROUPS? YAHOO PUSHING AWAY PROFESSIONALS?
Professional and technical people flock to these groups for the information they provide. Yahoo, did your management decide to push away all these technical and professional groups? Ms. Bartz, did you make a corporate decision to force technical/professionals to go elsewhere, such as free web forum and mail-to-forum software on private domain websites? Do you truly think you can mold such a savvy user base like clay, or leverage it in a jealous desire to become another faceybook wannabe?
YAHOO’s LOGIN DOES NOT CAPTURE A USER BASE ANYMORE:
Gone is the day, when Yahoo’s user account login was strong enough to keep its users captured within the walls of its portal. Users are now familiar with managing logins of many sites fluidly. Users now vote with their feet.
MAINTAIN DIGNITY OF EACH GROUP:
Yahoo has insulted our dignity by turning our professional information resource groups into pitiful imitations of teen pages with smiley-face images. Removal of the description on each group’s home page is a true insult to the group and its members, and a decrease in the usefulness of the resource. It demotivates the group, and causes loss of “group identity”. This forces the group administrators to point members away from Yahoo, toward private websites, to maintain group identity.
THOUSANDS OF USERS SAY NO:
It is clear from 99% of the thousands of comments Yahoo has received on their latest failure, Yahoo Group abomination… Yahoo has misunderstood the user base of Yahoo Groups. The newbie team working on Yahoo Groups does not even understand what Yahoo Groups is.
Yahoo CEO and Execs, you are wrong, and your error will destroy Yahoo Groups, the major product that brings in the most users for Yahoo.
FAREWELL YAHOO.
It’s been a good 10 year run. I’m leaving, and taking about 10,000 members with me. Where am I going? I’m using some great forum+email software that runs on my own domain’s website.
Great post.
YAHOO,
YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO US. WE DO NOT WANT THE REMODEL TO CONTINUE TO GO FORWARD! WE WANT SOME ANSWERS FROM YAHOO ABOUT WHATIS GOING ON, AND WE WANT THE REMODEL STOPPED UNTIL WE HAVE SOME.
AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO LIFT OUR VOICES IN PROTEST ALL OVER THE NET, TO GET OUR MESSAGE HEARD, AND OTHERS WILL CONTINUE TO LEAVE YAHOO UNTIL WE GET THOSE ANSWERS!
WE DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS TREATMENT FROM A COMPANY THAT WE HAVE BEEN LOYAL FOLLOWERS OF FOR SO LONG.
STOP THE REMODEL AND TALK TO US! THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN PREVENT THE DISASTER THAT IS HAPPENING.
Owl >8#
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT OUR GROUP’S PLAN TO SAVE YAHOO GROUPS IS, JUST READ THIS:
I realize we’ve accumulated a lot of posts in the few days we’ve
been up at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/
So if you don’t have time to read them all and want to know what we’re about, just come check out Post # 211.
Our group is public, you can read it without even joining, so you can get an idea what our strategy is and the things we are trying to do to continue the movement to save our Classic Yahoo Groups.
This might give you a better idea of if you want to join forces with us or not, and also prevent you having to wade through hundreds of messages to find out what we’re about. :)
We’d love to have you, come check us out!
Brenda
Nightowl >8#
We’re also writing to your advertisers and to anyone else who will listen. There must have been a better way of doing this. This is a very bad business decision.
>Yahoo! Bids to get its cool back<,,,,and fails miserably!
Yahoo has (had?) a great prduct. One that many hundreds of thousands of members use every day. Yes, there are glitches, sometimes we feel like throwing our computers out of the nearest window….but it has so many things we love that we stay…for now.
This 'improved' look, where it tries to mimic Facebook….and fails, miserably, has members running to find a viable alternative. How long will it be, I wonder until Google groups gets its act together to make it easy for us to move all our group messages, files, folders, links, databases, polls, aps over to a product that does NOT plan to throw out the baby with the bathwater?
Will Facebook members abandon FB in favour of Yahoo Groups? Not a chance?
If Yahoo goes ahead with its plans, I give it perhaps a year, perhaps less. No customers = no advertisers = no more Yahoo groups.
Yahoo’s makeover of Groups is a miserable failure. Not only did they lie to us about what it could do, it looks horrible, reduces its functionality by 30+ features, and was dropped on users with no warning. Given Blake’s propensity for speaking a hundred buzzwords and saying nothing concrete, and outright saying the opposite of what is true about the Groups product changes, Yahoo’s new direction” if you can call it that, is straight in course for the end of the tracks.
Check out the Groups Blogs feedback, and the YGroups suggestion boards. Users are up in arms, contacting the media, the CEO, lawyers, and worst of all, rival services. I’ve been with YG since before it was YG, and I’ve never seen users actually up and leave. Complain a lot, sure, we do that, we get taken for granted by Yahoo all the time. This was the worst they’ve ever done and many people are leaving and deleting groups left and right. It’s never been this bad.
For those who would read this and say “you guys are just having trouble with change”, no. This is worse. I’ve seen what you mean by that, but as i said above, users are actually leaving now. That is new. They really, REALLY hosed this up, start to finish. Full on train wreck. Go see for yourself before you call us whiners. This is the real deal.
Ok is a starting point but 3 years in this fast paced context is an ethernity and brings a lot of unpredictability in a 3 years plan. On the other side I think that only a real innovation or technological breakthrough can enable Yahoo in getting more market shares.