ReadWriteWeb

Yesterday Yahoo! held their Analyst Day - the 188-page slide presentation is here (12MB). There's too much in the preso for any one mind to fully comprehend, but here are the things that stood out for me...

Yahoo's Big Bets for the Next 5 Years

See slide 16:

1. Next Generation Experience --> a.k.a. a customer focus, the user experience

They listed a progression of user experiences, from the Directory in the early years, to Content Verticals, to Web-based Services (communicate), Social Media (communities) and multi-device (“I want to have access to my stuff wherever I go and on any device” -- e.g. Yahoo! Go).

2. Monetization

3. Platforms

4. Beyond the Browser - a particular focus on Yahoo Go and mobile (see slide 51, which states Yahoo has a "Mobile Leadership Position")

Media Group priorities

Slide 58:

2006 Priorities: Create Superior User Experience

• Build robust platforms
• Develop key strategic relationships
• Maximize user generated content
• Build core brand extensions

Lotsa Mollah!

Slide 170 - The Internet Ecosystem: Roughly An $80 Billion Global Industry

This is why Microsoft wants to be a media company!

So in summary, Yahoo as usual is making all the right noises. Focus on user experience, building platforms, user generated content, etc. Of course as Greg Sterling noted, "The theory is right on, executing is very hard."

The world's most visited webpage, Yahoo.com, has just had a major re-design (available for now at yahoo.com/preview) and Read/WriteWeb has the inside story. As well as the first in-depth look at the new yahoo.com, I have for you an exclusive podcast interview with Yahoo! Chief Product Officer Ash Patel and Vice President of Front Doors Tapan Bhat (yes that's his real title - more informally he's known internally as VP of "Making Yahoo! the best place to start").

The Yahoo.com re-design is officially flagged as a "preview" (aka beta) and it isn't yet the default yahoo.com homepage. In the podcast I was told there is no firm date for go-live - in the grand traditions of Web 2.0 it will be a beta until the company decides otherwise :-) Here is a look at the new design: 

New Homepage:

Old Homepage:

Overview of new features

The new yahoo.com marks a significant new look for the most trafficked website in the world. There's plenty of Ajax magic to make the Yahoo homepage more interactive - and Yahoo has made a big effort to make the user the primary focus of the new homepage. It has a larger search box, in recognition of the big role that the search interface plays in today's Web. There is also more emphasis on personalization, news content and community - moving away from the 90's 'everything under the sun' portal to a more user-focused homepage for the user. Indeed upon visiting the preview page, you're greeted with a banner that shows just how important personalization is to this re-design: "Welcome to the all-new Yahoo! It's made for you."

In the podcast we also discussed how the yahoo.com homepage has added more multimedia links and content, in line with Yahoo's status nowadays as a media company. This trend for more video and audio content on the homepage will only increase over time. 

From a design point of view, the most noticeable feature is an increased use of Ajax in the new layout. Also the page is wider, recognizing that the average PC monitor size has increased over the past few years (nb: there is an option to switch to a "narrow page"). The visual design employs the famous web 2.0 technique of faded colors - and there is more use of tabs too. In the podcast, VP of Front Doors Tapan Bhat explained some of the scaling challenges of implementing Ajax in a mass market website. He made it clear that the move to a more Ajax-heavy user interface required a lot of testing and optimization before it was ready for prime time. For an example of the Ajax touches, check out the "Personal Assistant" in the top-right corner. Here it is in a closed state:

...and here it is in an open state, using Ajax to make the transition fluid:

List of new features

The new features of Yahoo.com (preview) are:

- Personal Assistant: A new "personal preview area" which displays recent messages from Yahoo! Mail, an online friends list from Yahoo! Messenger, radio and movies, weather, traffic and events from Yahoo! Local. See screenshots above.

- Yahoo! Pulse: This is a new section in the home page and enables people to discover "what's hot on the Web" - including the most popular and interesting Yahoo! searches; the latest trends; popular music, videos, photos, people and opinions. This is in essence Yahoo! aggregating all of their user-generated content and filtering to get the most popular items - e.g. Interesting Flickr Photos, or Most popular cars, or Top Music Videos. Very 2.0!

- News Content: This is where Yahoo! will highlight feature stories, entertainment news, sports and finance content, plus the latest national, world and video news. These news items are hand-picked and updated by Yahoo!'s home page editors, so this is really human-powered 'professional' content (as opposed to automated Google News-type content). This section of content occupies a prime top-left spot in the new yahoo.com webpage, which is an indication of how focused Yahoo is on media content these days - because in the old design, news and entertainment headlines were to the right of the page and/or below the fold.

- Enhanced Search Box: Yahoo! Search box has been re-designed (in particular made bigger) and positioned more prominently on the homepage. Also you'll note Yahoo! Answers just beneath the Yahoo! Search box - which is their version of 'collective intelligence' search.

- Re-designed Navigation: Yahoo has always had a lot of navigation elements on their homepage, reflecting its history and reputation as the most popular portal on the planet. But the new design is definitely an improvement to my mind, as the left navigation makes Yahoo's product options stand out more. The overall impression is of a less cluttered interface, with content occupying the center of the page and so attracting the user's attention. In the old design, the navigation dominated the whole of the page. Now that the product navigation has been given its own space in the left column, that frees up room for the media content.

- Customization options: Users can customize colors and layout using the 'Page Options' button.

MyYahoo and Personalized Start Pages

A final note on how the new yahoo.com design complements My Yahoo!, which is Yahoo's "personalized start page". Yahoo.com is still very much a mainstream 'portal', but it now makes more use of web 2.0 functionality like the 'collective intelligence' evident in Y! Pulse. The new yahoo.com also has personalization in it, with features like Personal Assistant. However MyYahoo! is still the option for Yahoo users who want to fully personalize their web start page, with RSS feed content subscriptions and the like. In the podcast, I asked a question about whether MyYahoo! will get more widget/gadget functionality in the near future, as Microsoft's live.com and Google's Personalized Homepage have done recently (as beta products, it must be said). The reply was that because MyYahoo is an existing and stable 'start page' that pre-dated Microsoft's and Google's efforts by a long way, Yahoo has to be more conservative about how it rolls out widget/gadget integration. But they are looking into it.

Conclusion

All in all, I think the new Yahoo.com preview page is a big improvement on the old design - in terms of both 'look n' feel' and functionality. Considering that yahoo.com is the most trafficked webpage in the world - and so any changes they make to it affect many millions of users - I think the new design is a big step forward. It's much more contemporary-looking than the previous version and introduces a decent slab of 'web 2.0' functionality to the masses. What do you think?

Download podcast

The big news of the night is Yahoo's release of a new technology portal, aimed squarely at non-geeks (see site tour). To make the point it's not for geeks, the site features 4 stereotypical "advisors" (aka bloggers): The Boomer, The Mom, The Working Guy, The Techie Diva.

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.

Yahoo has announced four new APIs for its Developer Network: Photos, Calendar, MyWeb and Shopping. The Shopping 2.0 API is available now, while the Photos, Calendar and MyWeb read/write APIs will be available soon [updated - thanks Jeffrey]. While they'll be free to use for non commercial purposes, Ash Patel (Yahoo chief product officer) tells us there are commercial offerings coming soon.

Yahoo's new Application Gallery

I remember speaking with ex-YPN chief Toni Schneider about this last year and I was impressed by his vision for a commercial platform for APIs. I'm expecting Yahoo to really the ante with Google and Microsoft in terms of mashup ecosystems. Don't count out AOL and eBay either. [...]

[Full Story on ZDNet...]

The NYTimes reports that Yahoo! is backing off its big plans to create television-style original content for the Web. Fears that Yahoo original content will alienate movie studios and television networks appears to be behind this shift in strategy. In that sense, I can understand Yahoo focusing more on the other two pillars of its content empire: 'professional' content from traditional media companies (like ABC, Universal and the like); and 'user-generated' content. But actually this latest announcement is, I think, more a case of Yahoo re-defining what it means by "original content" - rather than backing off it.

Remember at last year's Web 2.0 Conference when Yahoo CEO Terry Semel outlined his vision for Yahoo as a media company? From my notes at the time:

"Yahoo is all about content" --> user-generated, professional, and the future of what content may be (which Yahoo will try to take a leadership position in designing).

I still think Yahoo has much to offer the world by taking a leadership position in defining 'the future of content'. It will undoubtedly include Internet video, multimedia and lots of input/output from general users. I think most Hollywood studios and US television networks will be slow to pick up on these opportunities, although some players like News Corp appear to be making headway. 

Yahoo has a lot to offer in this sense of 'original content', so it'd be a shame to see them back off those types of opportunities completely. I don't think they will, I expect they're just shifting tack (re-defining) and re-assuring traditional media that Yahoo won't compete (much) against them. I mostly agree with what Fred Wilson pointed out:

"The challenge is all about how to take the work of the masses and assemble it into compelling content. The company that figures that out will do very well."

...with the provisio that original content in the Internet era still requires expertise in its creation, so there's nothing wrong with Yahoo trying to create some of its own. But it's not simply a case of media companies producing "proprietary-content" anymore, as Henry Blodget put it. Original content on the Web will be much more a mix of professional and user-generated than what Lloyd Braun originally planned for.

Flickr pic by Thomas Hawk

I've been following Umair Haque's fascinating articles on new media economics and 'edge competencies' - and I've noticed he prefers Google's media strategy to Yahoo's. I've been curious to understand why, because the common wisdom over the past year or so is that Yahoo has been making all the right moves in this new world of Internet-powered media. Whereas Google often seems to be more experimental and lacking in a grand strategy for their products. Which is not to say that Google isn't effective in this new landscape - far from it. Just that Yahoo has seemed to me to be leading the charge into 21st century media.

Well Umair has now posted about Yahoo's recent earnings call and on first reading, I have to say his dismissal of Yahoo came across as general and lacking in specifics. So I left a comment, which Umair replied to and IMHO it's more useful than his original post. Umair commented:

"I'm not trying to bust on Yahoo, nor do I have a bee in my bonnet - I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Let me try and simplify.

1) There's a new value chain emerging. Think reconstructors.

2) Industry boundaries are blurring. Think Google + radio.

3) The value equation is being rewritten. Think Pay-per-x.

In all these cases, Yahoo is an imitator. Why? They don't have a real competence - they don't know how to create value at the edge.

This is an economic trap. They acquire companies to learn how to do better, but can't touch them for fear of messing them up. No learning is built. More acquisitions are made...

Back to the 3 points above, this translates into a strategic trap. They're forced to try and dominate the old value chain (this is what aggregation, licensing, etc really mean), and can't build the new one.

Of course, YMMV."

I don't claim to be as smart as Umair on this topic - clearly he's put a lot of thought into this and his new media economic theories (which btw I wish he'd stop calling Media 2.0). And I see where he's coming from... Google is creating new markets at 'the edge' with products like Adsense and perhaps with this new radio play they're doing now. Yahoo is putting a lot of effort into social software and user-generated content, but are they actually creating new 'value chains' like Google? Or are they, as I think Umair is saying, using new methods to dominate old markets?

I'm unsure of the answer at this point, but I wanted to a) throw the question out there and see what others think (please leave a comment), and b) recognize the thought-provoking work that Umair is doing at the Bubblegen lab.

Yahoo continues to buy up all the great talent, this time they've snagged my blog buddy Lucas Gonze and his innovative music-sharing web app Webjay. As the Yahoo! Music Blog explained [via TechCrunch]:

"Webjay is visionary and fantastic, but we are also keenly interested in Lucas the individual. He’s contributed a lot of great work to standards around music on the Internet, and has always pushed forward a refreshing perspective of openness and progress without turning a blind eye to infringement or the rights of copyright holders (likely because he’s a musician himself). His recent creation of the meme “Lightnet” is a culmination of years of working under this philosophy."

On a personal note, I've been following Lucas' progress on Webjay ever since he started it. He was one of the first readers of my blog too. So a hearty congrats to Lucas - well done mate!

Yahoo! Go is being advertised as "a new suite of products and services for your PC, mobile phone and even your TV". The main aim is to enable people to connect with their content (e.g. email, photos, music) across a range of devices. 

Right now the Go product range is limited. Upon clicking the "Get Started Now" button I got two "coming soon" notices and a limited availability mobile offering. Here's the deal at this point in time:

- The Go Desktop is "coming soon" and only konfabulator widgets are available now.

- Yahoo! Go TV is also "coming soon" and will only be available for Windows XP PCs.

- So that just leaves mobile -- and that's available only on "select Nokia Series 60 handsets."

The 'How It Works' was intriguing. The PC offering appears to be a desktop dashboard with fold-out panes. The email part of it is being promoted as a purely desktop app: "You can manage your mail without ever opening a browser." The Yahoo 360, IM and My Web 2.0 tie-ins seem to be all part of a desktop appliance - Yahoo's equivalent of the Google Desktop perhaps?

The TV part will be interesting to track, mainly because video and TV Internet integration is all the rage right now - with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and a host of others talking it up at CES. Yahoo is keeping the hype at a red hot level with Go, promising it'll "change the way you watch TV." It says: "By accessing Yahoo! services directly on your TV, you can have a more personalized viewing experience." One interesting feature is that Flickr will be featured in this product. There's also the expected music and video offerings.

Mobile is the unknown quantity here, because who knows if it'll be deployed outside the US and how effective the service will be. One interesting feature is "voice instant messages", which is Yahoo Messenger on your mobile. It also has email via mobile phone.

Paidcontent.org has listed all the product guff and has more links. And expect Yahoo CEO Terry Semel to talk about this at length in his CES speech tomorrow.

Summary

At first glance, Yahoo! Go seems like a decent attempt to create a kind of portal environment that will extend across the PC, TV and mobile. However at this stage it also seems to be mostly vapourware, with not much actual product to show. But then so is Microsoft's Vista at this time... So one key thing that I hope Semel will reveal tomorrow is the timeframe for when each part of Go will be released.

It also worries me that the TV part is limited to Windows XP PCs and mobile will be limited in terms of handsets and presumably carriers. That's the lay of the land with Internet media in 2006 though, with partnerships being the prime currency in this environment.

Of course the proof will be in the pudding, so I look forward to trying the Go product range out in future - when it's ready to, er, go.

Update: The official press release is out now and it touts Go as a 'Beyond the Browser' experience: "Yahoo! Go allows us to free the best of what the Internet has to offer from the confines of the browser and provides consumers fast and easy access to the essential products and services they know and love..."

Which begs the question - how big a part will web browsers play in this new media world?

Yahoo will broadcast a reality tv series called "Wow House" on their Web portal within the next few months. The SF Chronicle calls it an early step in Yahoo's ultimate goal to create television of the future. Wow House has a technology focus, as families participating in the show compete to outfit their homes with $10,000 worth of the latest electronics - such as theater systems, high-definition televisions and stereos. Viewers vote for which family wins, via the website. Revenue will come from advertising and probably product placement. 

The most interesting part of this news for me is how tv production for the Web is different than traditional 20th century television. As Ira Kurgan, chief business officer for Yahoo's media group, noted in the SF Gate story: most original tv programming on the Yahoo portal "will be in short form, in bites of only a few minutes, which makes them quick to download and more digestible for people who are multi-tasking." This fits in with the microchunking philosophy of the Web - e.g. blog posts and personalized websites such as Amazon. In 2006 microchunking will increase as structured blogging and similar initiatives take off.

Also, who will create the new generation of Web tv programming? While traditional tv and cable companies will surely develop shows in partnership with Yahoo, it's how Yahoo incorporates user-generated videos that will be most fun to watch. If Peter Jackson, who hails from my hometown of Wellington in New Zealand, can make it in Hollywood - I wonder what other far-flung video-making talent is waiting to be discovered, this time on the Web?

How is tv on the Web different? It will obviously need to be interactive, as SF Gate notes:

"Simply streaming video online isn't enough, analysts said. Chat, sharing and interactive advertising need to be incorporated into the picture to make the experience more compelling than simply watching traditional television."

Factors such as broadcasting to multiple devices (tv, PC, mobile, etc) will come into play, not to mention the challenge of earning revenue on the Web. RSS will probably be a part of it too, as RSS Applied notes:

"I can see something similar to iTunes, but open, that would allow free subscription to your favorite shows with links to the show's site at the end of each show. Of course, the site and the downloaded episode would be monetized with advertising. And, maybe on the site you could choose to download the entire season (before it was released episodically) for a fee without ads."

It's all very promising and I'll be tracking the progress of Web television here on Read/WriteWeb.

As TechCrunch reported, Joshua Schachter has announced the sale of Del.icio.us to (who else) Yahoo. Personally I'm thrilled Yahoo got del.icio.us, but I'm hoping they don't make it into a walled garden like they did with the My Web 2.0 product. Currently a user can export their data from del.icio.us, but they can't do that from My Web 2.0. I've written many times about this issue - I've even emailed My Web 2.0 senior managers, urging them to open it up. But still it remains a closed property… not very Web 2.0 :-( So I hope Yahoo doesn't ruin a good thing and close off del.icio.us. I'm sure they won't. More details on my ZDNet blog.