08 July 2008

My Yahoo! finally comes out of the beta closet

My Yahoo!, the personalised startpage offered by the search engine Yahoo! is finally rolling out its new interface to all its users. The new version gives users more control over the layout and content of their page, similar to the iGoogle startpage which is offered by search engine rival Google. The new My Yahoo! has been in beta for over a year, with users previously having the option to upgrade to the new interface. On July 14th everyone will be moved onto the new version, which has already been rolled out across several countries including the UK, Canada, France, India, Germany, and Spain.

New features of My Yahoo! include:

• Less intrusive advertising, with the removal of the current advertising unit giving users more control over the layout of their page

• More custom-designed modules with content from publishers such as New York Times and Wall Street Journal

• New Yahoo! modules that integrate content from the wider Yahoo! network such as Flickr, Calendar, Movie Showtimes, Note to Self, To Do List, TV Listings, Yahoo! Buzz etc.

• Better access to third-party email (e.g. Gmail, POP mail) and other services (e.g. Netflix, Facebook)

• More layout options with easy drag-and-drop functionality (similar to iGoogle)

• Tabbed browsing for multiple pages, and a new header with customisation tools for adding content

Also, in a move similar to that taken by Facebook last year, there are also plans to open the page up to third-party developers to allow the creation of applications and modules that can be used on My Yahoo! and other parts of the Yahoo! network.

Yahoo! will be hoping that this facelift will help boost their flagging userbase, with visitor numbers dropping by 15 million in 6 months, from 56.9 million unique visitors last November to 41.6 million in May. Similar figures from comScore show that visitor numbers for iGoogle are looking more positive, increasing from 23.8 million in November to 24.3 million in May - a small increase, but an increase all the same.

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