Marketing Pilgrim

If you have Yahoo set as your homepage–or just happen to visit Yahoo.com often–you may see this new design starting tomorrow:

Yahoo has announced it will start testing a new homepage design with a small group of Yahoo users. Here’s what you’ll get:

1. One easy check-in point. We’re testing a dashboard area (off to the left) that will let you add previews of your favorite Yahoo! and non-Yahoo! services – starting with checking for new mail from multiple accounts (initially Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and Gmail, with more to come), weather forecasts, and local events. We plan to add plenty more preview applications in the future, so that you don’t have to spend as much time jumping from site to site just to stay plugged in.
2. Helping you stay informed. We’re always hearing how much people love the “Featured” area of the page, so we’re going to keep enhancing that with more and more fresh, timely content you’re interested in from across the Web. And of course we still have the prominent search box, with Yahoo! Search’s handy “Search Assist” feature. As we continue evolving the test versions, you’ll also notice us adding more information about what your friends are doing across Yahoo! and the Web in general.

For the 314 million globally who make Yahoo their first stop each day, the new homepage could be very well received. It still retains the "push" features of news, entertainment, sports, etc, but also adds some "pull" options such as email, weather, photos, etc.

iGoogle and Netvibes (which is what I use) might be a little too geeky for Yahoo’s average user, so a blend of the old with the new, could be a good recipe.

What do you think of the new Yahoo homepage?