The Internet is becoming a popular media resource. Millions of users are going to the Internet as alternative source to obtain news, weather, and entertainment than traditional methods. Considering that services on the Internet generates large amount of revenue, many website designers and developers are in the process of developing dynamic websites to attract the end users. Generally speaking, the more users visit a website “hits” the greater chances of increase of potential revenue that company will receive.
That is the case of the Internet Company called Yahoo. According Nielsen NetRatings, Yahoo is ranked number two for the top ten parent companies on the Internet. Even though it is ranked at number two, Yahoo revenue has been continuously declining due to the competitive products and services offer by other Internet companies such as Google. One way for Yahoo to stay competitive is by improving areas that have been a problem such as the Yahoo homepage.
Advertisement
Advertisement is a huge revenue source for Internet search companies such as Yahoo. In result, providing advertisements on their websites generates majority of Yahoo’s revenue according to an article on businessweekonline(Yahoo! Manages an Upside Surprise, For Now). Majority of the U.S. citizens’ read left to right; however, the first thing I notice by launching the homepage is the block of pictures to right. These pictures initially distract my process because I have to decipher if those pictures are an advertisement, or if it is a legitimate web content link. It is understandable that this company has to make money, but it should display advertisements in a more intuitive design. For example, a simple fieldset would suffice. Yahoo could provide an advertisement title that is located on top of the advertisement picture. This would allow the end user to quickly determine if the picture is an advertisement, which will improve organization of the web content located on the homepage.
Automatic Customization/Streamlining Web Content
Yahoo has added a customization feature to its homepage. This feature allows the user to change, add/remove, and relocate content on users’ desired spot on the web page. Even though this is excellent feature that allows the user flexibility as they customize their homepage, Yahoo could raise the bar by having the customize web page set as a default every time the user visit the official Yahoo homepage. Currently, the end user has to click on a separate button to access this feature. By eliminating this button and setting the customize webpage to default, will allow the end users to access the web content and applications quickly. The user may use the customize web page as their main source of web content eliminating the needs to visit multiple web sites.
Compatibility
One major flaw is new design of Yahoo Mail. Yahoo Mail does not work using the Safari browser on an Apple computer. I use an Apple computer majority of times as my home personal computer. Even though the Macintosh operating system has a disadvantage with compatibility with Windows machines, I fell that Yahoo could have done a better job with its mail application compatibility issues . I have to use the old design of the mail application for the Safari browser, or I have to use other browsers such as Firefox. They recently took the beta stage of the new mail application and released it the public. Considering that it has been in a beta stage for over a year, I feel that it is still not complete.
Yahoo homepage has been known to be a clutter intensive website in the past. Currently, the company has made improvements to decrease the clutter and enhance attractiveness; however, I found some areas that still need improvements and enhancements.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/top10.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2007/10/yahoo_pulls_it.html?chan=search
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