I've been reorganizing my Internet email and calendar accounts lately...and today I'm going through my Yahoo account attempting to update my info, secondary email addresses, etc...
And there are two primary impressions about Yahoo's site and services...
Yahoo has actually updated a lot of it's services, including it's calendar and email products; perhaps one of the best features I like now about Yahoo's email is the "Automatic Organiser" application that allows the user to create subfolders and filtering rules by simply dragging and dropping a group of emails from the inbox to a folder the filter will move future emails. It's by far a better option than Google's "labels" that I am still figuring out (primarily because Google "groups" a string of emails together to which it applies the label rather than sorting into "folders"...which is odd because you can create IMAP folders in Google any way...but I'm getting ahead of myself with my own frustrations with how Gmail works and should probably save that rant for another blog posting).
Nonetheless...going back and forth between my Yahoo email page, Yahoo's main page and my own personalized "Y!" page, Yahoo's identity crisis and fall from eminent search engine mogul to a distant third nowadays is rather apparent. Attempting to get to my settings page for each various service is cumbersome and inefficiently time consuming...not to mention I often get the "Internet Explorer cannot display the web page" screens after logging in from say my Yahoo Mail page to my Y! Personalized page...
Confused yet? So am I! Apparently the people in charge of developing all of these great technologies are failing to realize the importance of an integrated online personal presence that is simple to use. Ironic, because at several log on pages for Yahoo, I'm greeted by a screen that reads:
"There's a new master of the digital universe. YOU."
That's funny cause having to deal with a clunky web service that is leagues behind the integration process of it's competitors kind of pushes me to consider I should use another service altogether. But the likes of Google and Microsoft aren't without there own drawbacks (and of those two, Microsoft is beginning to look and feel a lot like Yahoo!, especially with it's PC internet based offerings; have you tried using LiveMesh and SkyDrive recently? Again, great products, but somewhat confusing how those two cloud services seemingly lack integration as well.)
All of this goes without mentioning that the reason why Yahoo's ad revenue has dwindled while Facebook and Google's has soared is because, well, the ads on Yahoo suck. A one line add, tiny in print on a part of the web page I generally overlook caught my attention as a horribly placed ad for a for-profit higher education institution. Another was promoting a free 10 (or was it 15?) day gym membership; part of the screen that contained the name of the gym was cut off and I only knew which gym was being advertised from the familiar mastodonic figure carrying a bent barbell. By the way, has anyone used Y! Screen for streaming video content? I hadn't heard of it until today at yet another login page (before getting another, "Internet Explorer cannot display the web page" screen). Granted, I used Google to search for the service and typed in "Y Screen" and got a top listing for some website in German and didn't find "Yahoo Screen" or "Y! Screen" only until after searching for "Yahoo Screen." My point, however, only further shows the disarray in Yahoo's branding of itself and it's products. (And that reminds me of an ongoing privacy issue I have with Facebook too, all over the insertion of a period in an email address...apparently Facebook nor someone by the name of Adam Doyle in the UK know the difference.)
Looks like Scott Thompson, Yahoo's new CEO, has quite a lot to accomplish. For now, I think I'll concentrate more on how Apple and Google will deliver and sync my email, calendars and other media content to my PC and iPhone...
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