Why I'm a Yahoo user
I've been a loyal Yahoo! user for many years. Probably 6-7 now. The first thing I do when I sit down at a computer is log on to My Yahoo(and I make it the browser home page if it'sgoing to be my computer). There are ads, but there is only one banner ad and a few logos, so it's not too intrusive. I like them because they always have all the services I need and they are always adding new ones to keep me coming back. However, they always do some level of lock-in so that you can't switch away too easily. Here are some examples...
They started out as a "search engine", but by today's standards, they did a terrible job and they were clearly positioning themselves as a portal. Yahoo was the first portal to add major personalization features. And all the features that follow are exclusive to My Yahoo.
They were the first established portal to add free email. Hotmail had come along first and very quickly accumulated a huge base of users(those users were all hackers and spammers, but that's a different story). Yahoo doesn't allow people to use their site as just a POP server, so you can't easily switch email services without changing your email address and changing email addresses of course is a big pain in the ass.
Personalized stock quotes were a huge feature back in the late 90's. Yahoo did a very good job of providing a clear concise portfolio view.
Yahoo also added bookmarking features. This is one area that I'm amazed that people don't use more. Even a lot of my technically oriented friends use browser based bookmarks like IE or Firefox bookmarks. Bah, that's no good at all. How do I get to my bookmarks when I'm not at my primary PC? How unhappy would I be if my machine crashed and I lost all my bookmarks? Wouldn't I rather put my bookmarks all on a server that is accessible from any machine I want? Somewhere that's backed up and maintained so I don't have to worry about it?
Yahoo Instant Messenger is a fine IM service, but it doesn't interoperate with any of the other major services(AIM,ICQ,IRC). This is one area where I actually don't use Y! that much, but generally use AOL more because AOL has better compatibility with non-Windows clients.
Yahoo last year introduced RSS feeds. I can now put RSS content on my home page. However to lock me in, I'm not allowed to export that list of RSS feeds like I would normally be able to with other clients.
This year, the buzz word is blog, and Yahoo is delivering with its Yahoo 360. It's actually a bit late to the game(it's still in invite-only beta) but Yahoo usually delivers a quality product. Though for me, I'll continue to host my own and use blogger.com.
Yahoo has the best integration of services. I have a single signon for an excellent free Fantasy Football service, personalized sports updates and movie and TV listings, white/yellow pages, even integration with bank accounts. Only AOL can possibly match those features. Google could match the features in the future, but it doesn't currently. Amazon could probably profile its users better, but it would probably freak customers out they have so much information.
They started out as a "search engine", but by today's standards, they did a terrible job and they were clearly positioning themselves as a portal. Yahoo was the first portal to add major personalization features. And all the features that follow are exclusive to My Yahoo.
They were the first established portal to add free email. Hotmail had come along first and very quickly accumulated a huge base of users(those users were all hackers and spammers, but that's a different story). Yahoo doesn't allow people to use their site as just a POP server, so you can't easily switch email services without changing your email address and changing email addresses of course is a big pain in the ass.
Personalized stock quotes were a huge feature back in the late 90's. Yahoo did a very good job of providing a clear concise portfolio view.
Yahoo also added bookmarking features. This is one area that I'm amazed that people don't use more. Even a lot of my technically oriented friends use browser based bookmarks like IE or Firefox bookmarks. Bah, that's no good at all. How do I get to my bookmarks when I'm not at my primary PC? How unhappy would I be if my machine crashed and I lost all my bookmarks? Wouldn't I rather put my bookmarks all on a server that is accessible from any machine I want? Somewhere that's backed up and maintained so I don't have to worry about it?
Yahoo Instant Messenger is a fine IM service, but it doesn't interoperate with any of the other major services(AIM,ICQ,IRC). This is one area where I actually don't use Y! that much, but generally use AOL more because AOL has better compatibility with non-Windows clients.
Yahoo last year introduced RSS feeds. I can now put RSS content on my home page. However to lock me in, I'm not allowed to export that list of RSS feeds like I would normally be able to with other clients.
This year, the buzz word is blog, and Yahoo is delivering with its Yahoo 360. It's actually a bit late to the game(it's still in invite-only beta) but Yahoo usually delivers a quality product. Though for me, I'll continue to host my own and use blogger.com.
Yahoo has the best integration of services. I have a single signon for an excellent free Fantasy Football service, personalized sports updates and movie and TV listings, white/yellow pages, even integration with bank accounts. Only AOL can possibly match those features. Google could match the features in the future, but it doesn't currently. Amazon could probably profile its users better, but it would probably freak customers out they have so much information.
posted by Hubert at 4/02/2005 12:03:00 AM
1 Comments: Post a Comment
I'm totally with you re:yahoo, especially with the yahoo bookmarks. I started using them long ago, and haven't looked back. With two computers at home, and one at work (well, usually..), it just makes so much more sense to keep it on a server.
-Jason
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