Yahoo Is Bing

Looks like the integration between Yahoo and Bing is getting much tighter, and the Bing results with showing more images, and related information is showing up. I personally have mixed emotions concerning that as your can read in this post.

I got to thinking… Which of course can be dangerous. I am now beginning to wonder how if search engines keep incorporating more, and more and more bits and pieces of websites that make them popular… how can said website can stay in business???

If you can get the basic idea, or the popular video, son or excerpt from a new novel, or whatever it is you are search for right from the search page, why click over? Since websites and search engine have a symbiotic relationship, I personally think that search engines should slow down trying to incorporate everything but the kitchen sink, even if tastefully and cleverly done like Bing… Which I really like, presentation-wise. They rely a little too much on Wikipedia results!

Anyway, can you see the double edged sword? Google on the other hand wants you to go to websites, (so adWords, and AdSense continue to progress and profit) and it’s obvious that Microsoft doesn’t focus on that, but wants to get everyone to their site more so that direct web searchers to others websites. Of course Bing traffic is FLAT, and probably will continue to be, no matter how cute and well laid out their results, features and search results are. So perhaps I’m pondering nothing?

Food For Thought.

Have Search Engine Gone Too Far?

Okay, I think that lately, Yahoo has made some really stupid decisions. First there was their famous, “Redesign” (From which they disabled pretty much all the functionality they had built in, and we’re pretty much just left with, “Open QuickView” bubbles.

My bet it that they don’t get opened all that often. Anyway this isn’t about that. It’s about these really boring, dull and IN YOUR FREAKING FACE flash advertisements.

They stretch across the whole screen, the twirl, sparkle jump, grind jitter and dance at the edges of your peripheral vision, and then some.

ENOUGH ALREADY! Design-wise Yahoo has a lot to answer for.

The Most Annoying Ad Ever

So I still use Yahoo email for some things. Yeah I got Gmail. I got POP. I got freaking email all over the place after being on the Internet since day one. So every single time I check my Yahoo email I see Megan Fox’s tits in an advertising block for Netflix. Nevermind I already have Netflix. Never mind I’ve seen Transformers, and the sequel. Nevermind that I don’t even think Megan Fox is that particularly sexy. I’m a man, and every time I visit Yahoo and they’re using a cookie or know it’s me (a male) via an IP address they splash some female on the screen. Nevermind I’ve been married for fifteen years, Or maybe because ;-}

Anyway… I like software, cars, humor, books, home goods, all kinds of other things, and yes I like tits. However, I don’t like them everytime I open the Web Browser just because I’m male. I try to keep my eyeballs to myself, since I am married, and I have some degree or morality. So I wouldn’t click on that ad if they paid me to. It’s time to switch up your gender-driven advertising tactics Yahoo…

Yahoo-Toolbar-on-Java-Update

I don’t know about the rest of you all, but I get sick and tired, or tired and sick of unchecking checkboxes to keep from installing some unwanted 3rd party add on.

For example, “The Yahoo Toolbar”. I have unchecked the install Yahoo toolbar checkbox probably a thousand or more times by this point.

Over the years, that’s a lot of freakin’ clicking.

Just give me a break, and by default, LEAVE THE BOX UNCHECKED. Or at least allow users to download a version that has NO 3rd PARTY tag alongs…

Give the PC professionals that don’t want an extra app or an extra install the benefit of the doubt. This is an open plea!

Microsoft has announced on Monday that it’s deal with OpenX Technologies Inc will allow them to reach customers they might not ordinarily have access too. OpenX Technologies ad serving technology is open source, something that’s not readily associated with the software giant Microsoft.

According to the CEO, Tim Cadogan Open X and Microsoft will be referring publishers to each other.

Everyone knows that Microsoft continues to bleed money, recently posting a $480 Million loss for it’s online services division. It’s anyone’s guess if this will help Microsoft, but time will tell.

For now Google dominates the area of contextual advertising, and even though Microsoft may make a little headway into that area, they have a long way to go.

Yahoo Obscures Favorite Feature

Okay, the Yahoo homepage has been fairly consistent over the years, what with their logo not even being updated to include any Photoshop enhancements. Anybody ever heard of contour??? Drop Shadow??? Now they’re trying to go all Web 2.0 with the integration of their sidebar widgets. I have historically made my homepage Yahoo, my primary search Google. the reason I had my homepage set to Yahoo, is because they often have good news on the front page, and I like to know what’s going on with a lot of topics.

Now if you take a look at the screen grab of Yahoo’s latest incarnation, you will see that often (not at all times) they’ve obscured my favorite feature with web 2.0 pop up.  In fact their whole sidebar consists of pop up container like these, and most times they are too big, and they try to stuff too darn much content. They would be (in my small opinion) much better off by taking advantage of the much larger monitors that are proliferated and popping up smaller content container to the left, instead of obscuring their primary content.

In fact I dislike the new Yahoo home page so very much, that I no longer have my homepage there. That says a lot because I’ve had it set to www.yahoo.com for like ten years. Talk about diehard. Another thing that bothers me is the fact that most of Yahoo’s new features involve creating space for more ads, as most of the op up containers contain advertisements. Whatever happened to simple and clean. It’s another reason Yahoo is on the wrong track. What made Google so popular to begin with was their simple, clean, advertising free interface.

I also think the pop up timer’s timing needs to be reduced. The whole set up just looks too… commercial. I mean do not take me wrong, there is nothing at all wrong with making money via the Internet as Yahoo does, and many of their services are quite good, however, I believe this update to their home page will ultimately spell trouble for them with market share. The new design is definitely NOT user friendly, despite the months or years it took to design it. Most people know, that programming prowess doesn’t always = desiging quality.

So for the time being, I make this public appeal: YAHOO! PLEASE DO SOMETHING!