{"id":300,"date":"2006-12-11T20:59:49","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T20:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/archives\/300"},"modified":"2013-08-26T18:14:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T23:14:12","slug":"5-things-yahoo-does-best-why-its-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/5-things-yahoo-does-best-why-its-not-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things Yahoo! Does Best & Why It's Not Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever someone at Yahoo! makes<\/a> headlines<\/a> for something or the other, people are always quick to start the Yahoo! bashing. Although we don\u2019t think Yahoo! is the coolest company out there either, they\u2019re certainly not another AOL as people love to imply. Yahoo!, like any other company\/corporation\/media-giant out there does some things right, some things wrong, and beats the hell out of the competition in other areas; but for some reason, people tend to forget<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Yahoo!\u2019s biggest obstacle to success and popularity today is that despite all of it\u2019s Web 2.0 efforts (like an extremely-hyped WordPress Blog, Web 2.0 AJAX toolkits, a re-designed email interface, etc., etc.), it remains associated with \u201cold\u201d in the minds of many geeks today. That\u2019s not necessarily true, and as you will see from some of the points below, the only archaic thing left at Yahoo! is the Management.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Without further ado, the list in increasing order of \u201cperfection:\u201c\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Yahoo! Answers<\/strong><\/a>
    \n
    Just recently, Google Answers     closed up shop<\/a>. No explicit reasons were given, but obviously it was a flop. Besides the terrible 1980s interface and lack of community-feel to it (it was more like a business), it just wasn\u2019t popular enough. The reason is that Yahoo! <\/em>Answers did a hell of a lot better. Plus it\u2019s free.<\/p>\n

    Although the answers model differs completely between the two, in the end it was ask a question, get an answer. Yahoo! Answers is accessible via a much<\/em> more user-friendly interface, and it actually has an active user community to keep it going \u2013 the most important ingredient in any Web 2.0 site today. <\/li>\n

  2. APIs for Programmers
    \n
    <\/strong>Yahoo!\u2019s     extensive API library<\/a> and various odds and ends for programmers and coders is second to none \u2013 except Microsoft\u2019s, but that\u2019s different.1<\/a><\/sup> The point is, Yahoo! reaches out to the developers much more than any other corporate monstrosity out there today. From simple spelling-correction APIs to tag-suggestion modules, from AJAX libraries to sample files and support, you can\u2019t beat Yahoo! when it comes to developer-support.<\/p>\n

    Still not convinced? Surely you\u2019ve heard of the Prototype (TM) library, used in virtually every big Web 2.0 package out there? Let\u2019s just say Yahoo!\u2019s framework rips it to shreds<\/a>. <\/li>\n

  3. Yahoo Mail<\/strong>
    \n
    Yahoo\u2019s email<\/a> may be the least \u201cdramatic\u201d of the big three right now (Gmail, Live Mail, and itself), but it\u2019s nothing to slight at. The newly re-designed Yahoo Mail is just as slick, but it\u2019s Yahoo! Unlike Gmail, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s cool and totally Web 2.0, but that it\u2019s reliable, extensive, and always on. Whereas Live Mail\u2019s interface is iffy and slow, Yahoo! just has slow & under-powered servers, but the script itself is excellent. Gmail takes hours to initialize the first load, Yahoo! doesn\u2019t. Most importantly, Yahoo!\u2019s email is built on years of rock-solid reliability, and has the very best spam control from all three!<\/em><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s always on, loads fast enough, doesn\u2019t require a bleeding-edge browser, is as close to spam-free webmail as you can get. What more can you ask from a webmail service??2<\/a><\/sup> <\/li>\n

  4. Yahoo.com<\/strong>
    \n
    No, that\u2019s not a typo.     Yahoo.com<\/a> isn\u2019t the number 1 most visited web page in the world for nothing. \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d start-up pages with customized RSS feeds and widgets and stuff3<\/a><\/sup> may be great at first, but it\u2019s nice to have all the content Yahoo! gives you all at one go. And unlike MSN.com, Yahoo.com uses a much more straight-forward approach with slightly nicer (more down-to-earth) aesthetics. Sure, it\u2019s not as flashy; but remember, flashy isn\u2019t always good.<\/p>\n

    Yahoo.com\u2019s homepage gives you what you need to know, and a bit of what you don\u2019t. It has interesting stories (like MSN in that sense), and no ads.<\/strong> No wonder it\u2019s number 1. <\/li>\n

  5. We lied.<\/strong>
    \n
    Yep. There\u2019s only 4 things Yahoo! does best, that\u2019s probably why no one likes them! (Kidding!) As a matter of fact, there’s one more thing, it’s just not that big of a deal. More information on this later. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So if Yahoo does all these things and does them this well, why aren\u2019t their stocks reflecting it? More importantly, why aren\u2019t the people (read<\/em>: geeks) satisfied? Read on<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    As good as Yahoo! may be, a chain is only as strong as it\u2019s weakest link. And at Yahoo!, that\u2019s the management. They have plenty of excellent products and services, and the first thing they teach you in Business 101 is: Focus on your strengths.<\/strong> But Yahoo!\u2019s management refuse to do that, instead wasting time developing or purchasing a variety of mediocre content and services that aren\u2019t worth the effort.\n<\/p>\n

    When your site is the number one most visited in the entire world and your homepage is the homepage of millions of computer users around the world, you\u2019d have to a total moron<\/strong> to mess that up. Unfortunately, it seems that\u2019s the case. With the amount of money and resources Yahoo! has, it\u2019s rather pointless to keep hitting a broken nail on the (non-existent) head. If something doesn\u2019t work, write it off as a bad job, don\u2019t keep insisting on keeping it alive!\n<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s nothing wrong with people leaving your site every once in a while to find something else where. Especially if you know you can\u2019t help them. Who the hell uses Yahoo! for shopping? And when thousands of real<\/em> free hosting accounts exist, why people continue to opt for GeoCities is beyond us.4<\/a><\/sup> Instead of adding a mediocre version of YouTube to Yahoo!, management should be focused on improving the Fantasy Football interface \u2013 after all, that\u2019s something else that Yahoo! does better than the rest!\n<\/p>\n

    Who the hell goes to Yahoo! for Real Estate? That\u2019s what eBay is for!<\/em> And food!?<\/em> Thousands of recipe sites and tip-columns exist literally all over the web<\/em>, yet Yahoo! has to stick their overly-long nose where it doesn\u2019t fit. And if Yahoo! owns flickr, what do they need Yahoo! Photos for!?<\/strong> Now that Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger are on the same network, they really really<\/em> need a new messenger interface to keep people from leaving their client.\n<\/p>\n

    If life is about change, business is about how to never stop changing. In the course of 5 or 10 years, it\u2019s natural for the demand for certain products and services to go up, and for other such products\/services to go down. There\u2019s nothing wrong with people paying less attention to Yahoo! photos because they now use Yahoo! flickr instead.\n<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s Yahoo!\u2019s problem. A refusal to change. Before the mail re-design, it hadn\u2019t changed in 5 or 6 years. And it won\u2019t<\/em> change again for another half-decade or so. That\u2019s Yahoo!, they have the best of everything (well, some <\/em>things), but they bungle it all up because they\u2019re not willing to go with the flow. Then of course, their CEO has to stand and make a speech \u2013 and the community complains. It\u2019s one big cycle that\u2019s not going to end for a long time.<\/p>\n

    1. You can\u2019t honestly compare the thousands of APIs Microsoft produces for it\u2019s own OS<\/em> to the useful freebies provided by Yahoo! for website developers ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

    2. IMAP support of course! ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

    3. Offered by Google and Microsoft ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

    4. Well, not really. It\u2019s reliable and free. And crippled. Other services provide much greater flexibility, but there\u2019s not much to be said for their reliability or lifespan\u2026 But still! ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Whenever someone at Yahoo! makes headlines for something or the other, people are always quick to start the Yahoo! bashing. Although we don\u2019t think Yahoo! is the coolest company out there either, they\u2019re certainly not another AOL as people love … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[156],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","tag-business"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xDa-4Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}