They are described as "struggling with tech every day, just like you". Yes it's kind of lame, but no doubt there is a market for a tech products portal aimed at non-geeks. 

One thing that makes me feel uneasy about Yahoo Tech is the overwhelming consumer focus - it's all about "buying the latest gear" and is described as "product central". Consumerism is still normal in mainstream media these days, but on the Web I've become used to a more 'prosumer' form of commercialism. This quote from the NY Times interview of Patrick Houston, the general manager of Yahoo Tech, sums up the slightly out-of-kilter mainstream consumer focus:

"Technology is a form of self-expression," Mr. Houston said. "You are what gadgets you carry."

Also the advisor blogs look contrived and sound hokey - "I just zipped over to Amazon to price Microsoft Office: $407.99 for the full version that includes Access. Wow. That's a lot of money." Perhaps the advisors will grow into their role, but it all strikes me as a bit bland and as if they're following a script. Then again, I'm not in any of the target demographics - and I'm not being sarcastic or ironic (like us Gen Xers are wont to do), I really am just saying that I'm not in the target demographics.

But on a positive note, the "tech is made easy" angle is great and I really hope this pulls in the punters. Technology is too damn hard most of the time and "real" people won't get much down-to-earth tech advice by reading my blog, for example. They're probably better off getting their tech product advice from people who are just like them. Plus there are a lot of great 2.0 features in the portal - reviews, ratings, social networking, tag clouds, questions and answers, etc. So like TechCrunch, I'm taking a 'wait and see' approach with this. It looks promising, but at the same time also looks a bit too calculated. More at NY Times.