January 26, 2006

Yahoo's Senior VP of Engineering to Become Chief Product Officer

Over on Gigaom, Om Malik reports that Yahoo will name Ash Patel, the senior VP of engineering as their new chief product officer (CPO). Patel will replace Geoff Ralston, who according to Malik, is leaving for "parts unknown."

Om writes: I sat next to Ash, and got into a spirited discussion about why Yahoo is really all about My.Yahoo.Com. My contention is that forget search, because Yahoo has something better than that. My.Yahoo.Com is no longer a portal page, but instead an ?attention page? which can be and should be leveraged to become the aggregator site for complicated digital life. Ash, who spent a lot of time on that particular page - building it I mean - agreed.

I wonder what, if any plans, Yahoo has for their uncluttered and ad-free search interface at Search.yahoo.com. In the past year they have modules with news headlines, email access, and stock index info. In many ways it has the potential to be a My Yahoo Lite that could also work on Yahoo's mobile platform. It would also be useful to offer a module with recommended posts (personalization) from feeds you subscribe too? How about allowing developers the chance to build modules for this page? This page already allows the user to customize which search tabs are visible. Although in the past few months they have made it a challenge to do this. One thing is for sure, when I show the Search.yahoo.com page to end users during presentations, I almost always here and audible "oooh and aaah" with people going on to say that they had no clue that it existed and they're thrilled to know about it.

Om also reports that Yahoo Instant Messenger for the Mac (aka Mac Communicator) should be coming soon.

Bow, the departure of Geoff Ralston is yet another Yahoo exec leaving. In the past few weeks we've blogged about several others departing Yahoo including:

Posted by Gary Price at 6:49 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2005

Yahoo Begins Promoting Their "Clean" Interface

For years I've heard from many people that Yahoo's home page is "busy" and difficult to navigate and use.

I've also gotten the feeling that from some of these people the home page is a perfect reason not to use Yahoo Search.

However, Yahoo has offered a clutter-free, easy to navigate, and customizable page at search.yahoo.com for several years. Since this interface became available, I've been surprised to see Yahoo doing little to promote it to both current Yahoo users and people who haven't taken a look at what Yahoo has been doing in many years.

Well, this might changing and it's a a smart move on Yahoo's part. Over the weekend, I noticed a promo box placed on the primary Yahoo home page inviting users to visit Yahoo's "clean," "simple," and "easy" to use search interface. Here's a screen cap of the Yahoo home page that contains the promo ad.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:00 PM | Permalink

June 14, 2005

Google Scholar Link Showing Up For University Users

On Google Scholar noted that some going to Google from within university campuses were seeing a new Google Scholar link on the Google home page. Google confirms this is the case.

We have been offering Google Scholar as a tab [link] for the .edu domain for a few weeks now. We have expanded this to a larger set of universities. This includes a large number of universities around the world, not just .edu.

In other words, if Google can tell you are coming from within an institution using IP addresses that resolve to an .edu domain, or from a list of universities it chooses to target, then you'll see a new "Scholar" link on the Google home page, as the screenshot shows below:

Thanks to CKP for the screenshot!

We asked Google if there was a way for those who wanted to add the Scholar link to the home page to do so if it doesn't show up automatically, but the company didn't respond. We think it would be a good idea.

For that matter, if would be nice if people could pick and choose exactly what links they want on the home page, given that Google offers a variety of search services that aren't normally shown. Perhaps that's something the Google personalized home page launched last month will allow, as it matures.

FYI, Yahoo's pure search page has an edit option just above the search box that lets you add and remove links to many of the company's vertical search services. A9 also allows you to pick-and-choose from hundreds of sources.

Postscript: Gary points out that you can also do something similar on the main Yahoo home page, if you are logged in as a registered user. Look for the very small edit link in the upper right hand corner. That will let you change three of the home page "buttons" to the left of the Yahoo logo to whatever you'd like.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

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