New Yahoo! Ad Slams Google for Being Too Bare

[dark_lord69]

That is the exact reason I STOPPED using Yahoo years ago. It was filled with clutter and crap that I didn't want in my face. So, I started using google!

 

[yao]

I used yahoo more when it was simpler. after they personalized yahoo page, I started converting to google.. yahoo is good, but it often has the wrong strategy. This one appears to be another instance.

 

[Cons29]

cant remember the last time i used yahoo, even the email.
and yes i prefer the clean one, no pics, just the textbox and the GOOGLE, which from time to time adds a little nice touch.

this is a free publicity for google ahahaah

 

[BlueCat57]

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]The people posting here must (sic) aren't thinking too clearly.[/citation]

TA152AH is the only person here that read the article and thought about it. (Sorry, I just noticed I only read the first page of posts. I'm not going to read the rest right now so please forgive the generalizations.)

I've been using Yahoo! since the very early 90's as my homepage. Like most people I now use the built in search box in my browser, so what a search engine's home page looks like is irrelevant. I seldom go to a search page to do a search.

What Yahoo! is trying to do is to get people to make Yahoo! (be it search, MyYahoo!, or some other Yahoo! branded page) their home page.

Do all of you Google lovers use the Google search page as your home page? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing that most people have some sort of information or link intensive page set as their home page. That is what Yahoo! is going after.

All of you missed the little phrase near the end of the article "Yahoo! is the opposite, preferring to brand itself as a portal." Yahoo! is a portal, AOL is a portal. That is what Yahoo! is positioning itself as: a portal for users to enter the Web.

Yahoo! is using a marketing technique since they are going after Google and not iGoogle (which I believe is Google's portal page). Yahoo! will also go after AOL and other ISPs who provide portal pages. That is what the ad campaign is doing.

OK, this is long enough. Attack away!

 

[TheKurrgan]

Hah! As far as TA152H's comment goes, I think it represents the low end of users, which DOES make up a fair amount of the user base. Most people want some fancy page when they open up the browser. I view it as simply as this: Google is a tool (when NOT using iGoogle)
and Yahoo is a toy. This 83million ad series may net yahoo a few users, but basically it seems like a waste. People who use yahoo now will continue, and you wont pry google away from the google users. The whole line "You go there to leave" is 100% correct. I go to google to find what I'm looking for and get to THAT site, not stare at googles advertisements or what it is they think I like.

 

[Guest]

Reminds me of a TV ad for Ask Jeeves (or maybe just ask.com) years ago. Some positive feature about previewing search result pages through a popup "to save time". Worthless. I can more quickly open a few tabs of results and skim it more efficiently myself than in a small popup window. Like Yahoo, extras I couldn't possibly care less about. Google search all the time for me.

 

[Guest]

I use Bing now for the picture. Yahoo is too cluttered. Google is too plain. Bing is plain, yet with an interesting photo most days.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]husker[/nom]Yes, the people here "must are" (sic) thinking clearly. Are you saying that just because yahoo is different than google that we shouldn't intelligently analyze the content of their advertising? Yahoo is putting out a message that states it knows what we want better than we know what we want.And here is see that you do the same thing as yahoo, telling others what they will not miss. Sorry, not drinking any of yahoo's kool-aid.[/citation]

Actually, if you had any gray matter, you'd realize that's what advertising is - trying to tell people what they want.

By the way, I don't use Yahoo at all. But, leaving a search engine is very easy. Most people have the same experiences, and changing search engines is relatively painless. Bing will probably catch Google anyway, or at least get closer. Every month they gain. I guess that's why Google wants to make these changes - they want to become like Bing.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]TheKurrgan[/nom]Hah! As far as TA152H's comment goes, I think it represents the low end of users, which DOES make up a fair amount of the user base. Most people want some fancy page when they open up the browser. I view it as simply as this: Google is a tool (when NOT using iGoogle)and Yahoo is a toy. This 83million ad series may net yahoo a few users, but basically it seems like a waste. People who use yahoo now will continue, and you wont pry google away from the google users. The whole line "You go there to leave" is 100% correct. I go to google to find what I'm looking for and get to THAT site, not stare at googles advertisements or what it is they think I like.[/citation]

Actually, it probably represents the high end of users. I get my news and all my information from the web, not TV. A portal gives me that, and of course, that's where my email is too.

A low end guy like you probably watches TV a lot, and gets news that way. It's fine, there are still a lot of people that find the simplicity of TV better, but, I find I get more news from the internet. And I can't search on stuff, if I don't know it happened in the first place. So, a general site like this is nice, and then I visit the more specific sites.

Google will never replace portals.

 

[dragunover]

http/www.google.com/ig
Nuff said, Yahoo.

 

[axe1592]

I can see Yahoo's point IF theyre only talking about home pages. I kinda like the idea of using something like Yahoo for a home page. You fire up your browser and you get a quick scan of the latest news stories or whatever. Im more of an aimless web browser so that would work for me. Fox News is my current home page for this very reason.

Now as far as search engine goes, I agree with everybody here - I just want a box to enter my search criteria and dont really care about what Miley Cirus is up to this week.

 

[The_Trutherizer]

Nobody wants a tool that finds things for you. Google is a tool you can use to find stuff. There's a big difference and I'm sorry, but I am not yet ready to join the march or the morons.

 

[scott_madison1]

In related news, Yahoo pushes out more pop-ups to its unsuspecting users!

 

[ltgrunt]

There really isn't any one webpage that I want to go to first thing every single time I run IE (or FF or Chrome). This is why I have Google set as my homepage. I open my browser and there's Google, waiting with practically no load time. If I want a web portal, I click on the iGoogle link at the top-right; if I want to go to a website I'll find my own way there.

I don't need a portal most of the time, and having my browser open up to a web portal filled with banner ads, Flash animations, Java and whatever-else-have-you every time I run it would be unacceptable. I use Google as my homepage because it provides more functionality than having IE/FF/Chrome open to a blank tab, while at the same time having basically no load time. As far as utility is concerned, not much tops Google as a homepage.

Still, Google has iGoogle, a completely customizable web portal interface that anyone can use. Yahoo's advertising is playing up an experience that they don't have a monopoly on providing. There are other strictly web-portal sites that provide functionality on par with Yahoo's web portal, and this commercial doesn't give any argument for Yahoo's web portal being better than anyone else's. The commercial does seem to say "we're better than Google (even though they don't specifically name Google) because we're a search engine *and* a web portal," but it completely ignores two facts: 1., that Google provides a less cluttered and more efficient search experience, and 2., that Google has its own web portal, iGoogle.

Essentially, the commercial is a poor showing, because all it is going to accomplish is getting people who already use Yahoo to keep using Yahoo for a while longer.

 

[milktea]

Wow, so many comments posted already. Oh what the heck, I'll just put my 2 cents here.

Google is simple, period!

Yahoo needs to change, and be sure to learn from Google.

 

[Lewis57]

I

 

[amstech]

Ivan Chess wins.

 

[thearm]

That's exactly why I use Google and not Yahoo. To much junk.