Yahoo!
For some reason, andÂ? it mayÂ? just seem like it,Â? Yahoo! always seems to be overlooked. The website obviously gets respect, but do they really get the respect they deserve? The website probably boasts the largest, most geographically diverse userbase, and that userbase spends, on average, almost half-an-hour on the website a day (here’s where blogs are much better than university esssays - I don’t have to give a source for any of that!). Yahoo! is ranked #1 by Alexa and always has been.Â? Regardless of all this, Yahoo! always seems to find itself in the shadows of Google and Microsoft. If there is a battle for net-supremacy, at least if that battle happens in the near future, Yahoo! must be the one that survives.
For awhile, anytime Google did something, they seemed to do it right. Gmail, Gtalk, Google Maps and Google Earth all came out with great reviews and seemed to set the bar quite a bit higher. The last few releases from Big Brother 2 seem to be lacking. Microsoft is making a big push to improve their online presence with their Live.comÂ? releases, and there are some good things, but again, it just doesn’t meet the bar that Google raised. Yahoo! seems to be the only site that is living up to the obviously high expectations.
The release of their new satellite maps was pretty good. There was a definite upgrade. The new mail client is absolutely amazing. There is little orÂ? no lag, the ability to use keyboard shortcuts, and the whole feel is amazing! Live came close, but fell just short, and GMail already had a pretty good setup, but it was never good enough to make me switch from the old Yahoo! email. With the release of the new Email system was an amazingly in-depth tutorial/walkthrough for the site that makes the new system almost foolproof (there are still those out there that mistake the CD tray for a cupholder, and we have to account for that). As a package, definitely deserving of being labelled a successful release.
Since the release of the new email system, which many users have been using for weeks now, is the release of the new homepage. The new homepage has a clean look to it and takes advantage of Web 2.0. The page makes the Yahoo! experience better for the user, with more information and servicesÂ? available, but a less cluttered and overwhelming feel. It still isn’t perfect, but it has included a number of upgrades and improvements that are appealing, and with a little bit of customization with MyYahoo! it may be perfect.
In no way is the battle over, and it may not have really begun. There is so much in the news about the Web 2.0 startups, one or two acquisitions or comparable releasesÂ? by the big 3 can easily change the opnion as to who is winning. With the constant evolution of the Internet, the typical Internet user, and what the Internet is used for, it will be important for these companies to be positioned in a way to adapt and revolutionize their individual roles and niches. Right now, it would seem Yahoo! could be in the best position to do just that.