Yahoo hopes to rope in revenue with the new homepage
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 17:20 IST   |    1 Comments
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Yahoo hopes to rope in revenue with the new homepage
Bangalore: Yahoo is set to launch a new homepage as the company is trying to make it more relevant and interesting for internet users, which will help them create new advertising opportunities. Even though last time Yahoo got a remake was three years ago, this change is said to be the most radical one since the birth of the company in the dot com boom in mid-nineties. Yahoo's Chief Executive Officer, Carol Bartz, had kept revamping the site as a major priority since she joined the company. Recently, Carol said both search and display advertising had slumped, leading to a 13 percent decline in revenue (in contrast to Google, which reported a three percent revenue gain). This project of changing the homepage, known internally as Metro, was kicked off by former Chief Executive, Jerry Yang. Project's main intention was to let users customize the site with links to other internet services with which Yahoo has been continually competing for users' attention. The biggest change in the new design is a left-hand menu which users can customize with links to third-party software such as Twitter, Gmail, Facebook, Flickr or any other widget of users choice. News and headlines will still be in the middle of the site, which has a slightly cleaner look than the current homepage. Yahoo.com remains the second-most-visited web page among U.S. Internet users behind Google's search page. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer has tried many times to take over Yahoo but has failed so far. A combined online advertising platform would give Yahoo and Microsoft around 25 percent of the online search audience, enough to be a real threat against Google. It is unsure as to why Yahoo has proceeded with the launch of the new interface even though testing has confirmed that the new interface would result in lesser "user engagement". In short, with the new homepage, people tend to spend lesser time on the site and would get one click access to Gmail and Facebook.

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