Yahoo relaunches with streamlined look
The Internet portal introduces a new home page that sports a cleaner layout with more potential real estate for advertisers.
The launch comes a little less than a month after Yahoo first announced the changes, the first overhaul to the basic framework of the company's home page since 1995.
The redesigned home page went live late Monday, according to Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Lee.
"Redesigning the home page is one step for us in our continued success to evolve with consumers' needs," Lee said. "The redesign is more streamlined, integrated and innovative to provide an overall improved user experience. By making the page easier to use...it's advantageous to consumers...and advertisers trying to reach those consumers."
The redesign also follows several major changes to Yahoo's network of sites. For example, the company recently pulled the plug on financial broadcasts. In recent months, Yahoo has introduced a number of subscription services, aimed to supplement sagging advertising revenue.
The new look does away with many of the site's superfluous links and clutter, but retains much of Yahoo's color and style. The site also sports a "personal assistant" tab adjacent to the navigation bar, allowing visitors a one-stop login to e-mail, calendar and address book services. The home page now also features a newly created "entertainment" section to highlight movies, games and videos.
The changes were fueled in part by advertisers' increasing demand for greater exposure on the top-rated Web portal. With a pronounced decline in advertising revenue, Internet publishers such as Yahoo, which seldom catered to advertisers in the past, have shown increasing flexibility and willingness to experiment over the past year.
A space for marketing promotions has been made in the site's shopping section, located on the right-hand side of the page, followed by the entertainment area. A Hollywood studio marketing the launch of a new movie could sponsor the entertainment box, for example.
Another key area that will garner more attention for advertisers is the center of the home page, known as the "mantle." The mantle box, which takes a sizeable portion of the screen, has featured links to Yahoo-affiliated areas such as FIFAWorldCup.com, its personals area or movie promotions for new releases such as "Bad Company," starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock. The page's redesign will further accentuate interactive types of advertisements on the site.
Along with the home page changes, Yahoo is revising the look of its Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Shopping services. The new version of its popular e-mail service will integrate functions such as its address book, calendar and notepad. The new Yahoo Mail will also include new navigation tools, such as drop-down menus in DHTML (dynamic HTML) and different category tabs, and will use a new color scheme that people can change.
DHTML combines style sheets, scripts and formatting commands to make Web pages more interactive.