To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39289576,00.htm

Yahoo! tests home page overhaul
Radical redesign unleashed

By Reuters

Published: Thursday 18 September 2008

Yahoo! is moving ahead on Thursday with a radical redesign of its home page - the most heavily trafficked site on the web - making changes that give users a personalised view of the wider web.

The internet media giant is under the gun to deliver on year-old promises to transform Yahoo! from a network of more or less insular properties into "starting points" that help consumers quickly navigate their way to the rest of the web.

"We are going to put what matters to you most at your fingertips," said Tapan Bhat, the senior vice president in charge of "front doors" - the main destinations at Yahoo!, including Yahoo.com, MyYahoo! and the Yahoo! toolbar.

Latest videos from silicon.com

Nuclear missile detector

Analogue torpedo simulator

Voice biometrics - 60-Second Pitch

The first UK business computer

British PCs through the ages

Why work in IT?

Data security services - 60 Sec Pitch

Check out all videos from silicon.com here

The new Yahoo! home page features a tab on the left hand column of the page with sophisticated links to the user's 10 or 20 favourite sites. It functions as an alternative to navigation methods like bookmarks, link bars or browser tabs, Bhat said.

In its simplest sense, Yahoo! is blending the broadcast, editorially controlled view that Yahoo.com has long offered with the personalised, self-selected view of information that the company's MyYahoo! service offers. It mixes things users know they want, with the serendipitous or unexpected.

Bhat said: "For the first time, we are going to be marrying those two to take the best of both."

The changes, which Yahoo! is testing on only a small group of users initially, will lead to a full-scale overhaul later. Two years ago, the last such redesign of Yahoo.com took up to six months to fully implement, the Yahoo! executive said.

The makeover of Yahoo.com marks the company's 14-year evolution from the web's pioneering directory of sites to an index of links to a search navigation tool to a complex media destination site.

A spokeswoman said Yahoo! planned to invite a random sample of its users amounting to less than one percent of its audience. The tests will be conducted in India, France, the UK and the US, Bhat said.

The new home page relies on slick personalisation technology that allows users who have signed into their Yahoo! account to see when new information arrives not just on Yahoo! sites, like email or news, but also on sites such as eBay auctions or Google's Gmail service.

Instead of whisking people to these sites, users can see a preview of the information while staying on the home page, which allows them to quickly navigate across a range of their favourite sites. The Yahoo! home page attracts around 100 million US users per month and 300 million worldwide, Bhat said.

Yahoo! is relying on new technology it calls the Content Optimization Knowledge Engine to help its computers determine what the most engaging content may be to a specific user, then serve it up based on their prior surfing habits. Relevant ads tied to users' particular interests are delivered as well.