Search Results for: boatloads

Yahoo! is still there but it is admittedly a lot less fun these days to write about. Long gone are the days of lady longshoreman wannabes like Carol Bartz (who boatloads of fun to write about) or the resume challenged antics of Scott Thompson.

No today Yahoo! is settled down into a company that is looking to bring itself back to some semblance of its former self under the seemingly stable guidance of its current CEO, ex-Googler Marissa Mayer. Part of the return to its sense includes a new look that is being rolled out today.

It’s important stuff since Mayer herself published a post to the Yahoo Corporate blog in which she says the following:

It’s that time of the month again! It’s the time where we prognosticate about the future of the search world and act as if we can tell what is going on in the minds of all searchers all around the globe.

To summarize: Google is still the leader by far. Take a look at the chart below from Experian Hitwise.

Congrats to the Bing powered search team. There has been upward movement since last August with share going from 24.56% to the current 28.99%. That’s impressive on many levels. What is interesting though is that in order for Bing to be considered the real contender it has to pass its kissing search cousin Yahoo in the race and it hasn’t even gotten there yet.

I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to write a little something about Yahoo that didn’t involve the word boatloads, layoffs or a product’s demise.

Today, Yahoo has announced (hold on to your hats) a search improvement called Yahoo Search Direct. Ok, cue the cool video to behold this strange wonder called a Yahoo search announcement.

I took the beta which can be found at search.yahoo.com out for a spin and it’s nifty in that it is a different search experience. Is it a better one? We’ll see.

It worked well on direct terms and more widely searched terms. Where is falls down a bit is at the local search level but that may be something that will evolve with time.

The fate of Yahoo search as we know it is still in limbo for sure. As the world waits with bated breath for the final look of the Microhoo search engine and the boatloads of opportunities it is supposedly going to afford the world at large, there are still many more questions than answers around the future of Yahoo search. Yahoo is attempting to start to shift the focus a bit by telling the world its new search story.

The SF Chronicle reports

Yahoo Inc. stresses that it’s still in the online search business, but a series of papers and presentations the company is unveiling at a major conference this week underscore how navigating the Web has less to do with the search box and blue links we know so well.

Just so you are prepared, this post is entirely speculation and conjecture based on my following the Microsoft and Yahoo “drama” that has been unfolding over the past century or so. As you may guess from the title, I have had enough. Either make it happen or don’t. Put us out of our misery here.

Think about it. If it takes this long for these two entities to figure out if they can tolerate each other then what will it look like when they live together for real? This whole thing is starting to feel like a marriage that everyone mutters under his or her breath, “I give this one 2 miserable years max”. Couple that general feeling with what is probably a remarkably complex corporate prenuptial agreement and you have a recipe for cordial roommates at best and a complete train wreck at worst.