Archive for: yahoo
Geocities was created fifteen years ago when the internet was barely getting onto its feet. People went mad using basic HTML creating what are now viewed as utterly horrific websites such as this one. Now, after fifteen years of offering free hosting services Yahoo! have finally decided that it is time to close it down once and for all.
October 26th will be the day all geocities websites will be deleted from the servers. Yahoo! sent out an e-mail advising all geocities members to back up all geocities files onto their computer or move their website to another hosting facility.
“We know your files are important to you, and we want to make moving to Web Hosting as easy and affordable as we can. For a limited time, you can move your files automatically, take advantage of terrific features like a personalized domain name and email, even redirect your GeoCities web address to your new site — all for only $4.99 a month for a full year.” Read an e-mail sent out to all GeoCities subscribers today.
In true business fashion, Yahoo! are using this closure to pedal their own hosting services from $4.99 per month for small businesses and personal users.
It seems like the last remaining bits of the old internet are dying away. Personally, I see it as a good and bad thing. Bad because I’ll have to recover my website and transfer it elsewhere but good because the internet is prevailing even during a recession.
If you are a geek blogger like me, you would know that the having a good ranking within the most important search engines it is a big deal if you are trying to promote your blog. KPMRS (Keyword Position Monitoring Report Service) can help you with that by monitoring constantly the page rank you have with Google, Yahoo and Bing.
How to use it is very simple, you don’t even have to be registered to receive any result, you can query and get some instant results about your site and a special keyword. The free registration can also give you: Email Alerts (when position changes or when a competitor has passed you); weekly reports; and monitor for Google’s Page Rank and Alexa.
Here’s a query about my blog with a keyword that I know I have a good ranking about it:
It is pretty cool to have these results and see the differences between the search engines; and of course will be very helpful to you if you are setting up your business to evaluate the status of popularity.
Google and Yahoo! Are the two main search engines in the West. The two have been around long enough for everyone to use them instinctively without much regard to competitors. Seriously, if you want to know something you either Google it or…uh, ‘Yahoo!’ it.
Now, Yahoo! have released an ad-on of their Delicious affiliate site for Google’s Chrome Internet browser. This is one of the first updates to become available since Google first released Chrome. Up until recently the browser was considered by many developers and programmers to be unstable and unsuitable to develop add-ons for.
Google call these new ad-ons ‘extensions’ are now growing in popularity. However, many are still hopeful of Google releasing more powerful ad-blockers.
Yahoo!’s Delicious extensions allows the user to log in and post their bookmarks and comments. This is considered very basics in comparison as to what’s available in Mozilla and internet Explorer but it is a step in the right direction – it’s also a very ‘tongue-in-cheek’ move by Yahoo; beating Google at their own game.
There has been a lot of talk recently about Bing and what amounts of traffic and growth it has been seeing. Other blogs such as the Inquisitr have been talking about how Bing has been bringing in more traffic than Yahoo. I just wanted to run through my first impressions of Bing and the results they have sent to Crenk.
Bing is very much the same as Live.com and I really think this is a marketing ploy from Microsoft than any major changes. The search engine still delivers poor results in comparison to Google and Yahoo. However, they are now adding channel specific search engines. For example if im looking for flights Bing works this out and then delivers me to the flight specific search engine within Bing. Thus, doing search this way provides more specific advertising opportunities and deliverys more detailed results that Google just cant compete with.
With regards to results from Bing to Crenk it has been very minimal. Bing has sent Crenk 171 pageviews, while Yahoo sent 1,629 and Google 60,195 in the same period. Thus, Bing has a huge amount of work to do to bring itself up to where it needs to be.
Yahoo has announced that they have launch an iPhone and iPod Touch application for Yahoo Music. The free app is available now through the iTunes App store.
The amazing team at CBS RADIO crammed a lot of great features into the Yahoo! Music app so that you will never be without your favorite music when you’re on the go. Here are just a few of the great features included:
- Browse through 20+ genres
- Skip up to six songs an hour
- Browse stations by genre or find local stations ‘near you’ utilizing GPS
- Share stations with friends
- Browse your listening history or recently played stations
- Buy albums/songs via iTunes
- Listen to 1010WINS, KROQ, WFAN and more than a hundred other CBS RADIO stations in addition to Yahoo! Music’s 150 music stations
- Add presets for instant access to your favorite stations
Head over to http://twitter.com/yahoo to follow us for 140-character updates on a variety of things Yahoo!. Just five hours in the saddle and we have nearly 200 followers. Welcome!
That said, there are many other Yahoo! Twitter accounts that went live before us, including @yahoo_directory, @yahoosearchdata, @yahoomovies, @yahoo_sports, @YahooNews, @yahoonews_odd, @Yahoogames, @YahooBuzz, @ymailblog, @yahoogroups, @delicious, @OneConnect, @YahooGeo, @YahooResearch, @ydn (Yahoo! Developer Network), @YUILibrary, and @ysearchFE (Yahoo! Search). Check them out.
It has been reported by the Silicon Alley Insider that Yahoo is closing their RSS Advertising solution.
Not much word on why — a Yahoo spokeswoman provided this statement to SAI:
Yahoo! is closing its Ads in RSS effective February 2, 2009. The beta program, which enabled publishers to place contextually relevant ads on their own site, was available to a targeted group of small online publishers. We have ended this beta program to focus on other more broadly used ad products for our publishing partners such as Sponsored Search and Content Match.
Silicon Alley isnt really sure why Yahoo is making this move. However, here at Crenk we know that this is just a smaller part of the big move coming from Yahoo. I have heard from inside the company that they are going to be closing a lot of departments within their contextual advertising network. Major changes will be coming with the next three months.
Review My Web is a FREE web site review. We stack you up against your competitors on Google, Yahoo, Blogs, and other key channels like Web 2.0, SEO, PPC, Social News, Blogs and much more.
The process is very simple, head over to Review My Web and add in the website you want analytics for and then also type in two competitors and then your email address. It normally only take up to five minutes for the report to then be sent to your email address, and its that simple.
Review My Web is a great free seo analysis tool, but it would also be great to see previous results and compare if everything is moving in the right direction.
When Xoopit was first released as an add-on to Gmail, I was one of the first adopters. I typically enjoy adopting newly released applications, and this was no different. I remember installing and enjoying the add-on initially, but over the next couple of days, after really delving into Xoopit, and utilizing it, my interest turned to frustration.
The application basically hijacked my email and it was difficult to move around the intrusive menu bars it installed, and finally I threw in the towel and deleted it. Now, it has become apparent that with Yahoo redesigning their mail platform, Xoopit is set to reach over 275 million Yahoo Mail users around the world. Opportunities like this don’t come around a lot, and Xoopit is bound to achieve new levels of interest with this amazing boon to their application.
This is an opportunity to reinvent itself, and possibly build a profitable application. While talks with Yahoo are open for monetizing ideas, it looks like the pairing will benefit from one another.
If you’re using Yahoo Mail, and when the Xoopit addition comes out, chime in below in the comments section and let us know your thoughts.
Yahoo’s woes have been smeared across every form of tradtional media as well as every news site on the net. Starting with their slump in stock value, their lack of management, their massive cuts due to the economy, and their on again/off again courtship with prospective buyers. Yahoo has gone through its fair share of hard times, much like any other company has been through this strained economy.
The services that Yahoo offers currently seem almost lackluster when compared the number of simliar Web 2.0 applications that exist that no only compete with Yahoo’s offering, but are better on many levels. Yahoo’s email service and search service had a revamp earlier this year, some services were let go, similar to what AOL was also doing earlier this year.
LaunchCast Re-Launching
Those services that Yahoo has not cut, more often than not, they have been outsourced to other companies. Currently their subscription music service was relayed to Rhapsody music service to continue it’s music playback offerings.
Now Yahoo is looking at relaunching its LaunchCast service through CBS Radio
. AOL made a similar deal earlier this year to ease the burden of cost on the company. According to TechCrunch, “CBS provides streaming fo
r 144 owned radio stations, as well as providing some Internet-only content.” With this kind of backing it would make good business sense to relay some of the burden on the company and offset it with this partnership that will at least help continue the brands music offerings.
This partnership further extends to the marketing and advertising for LauchCast. CBS Radio will now take over all the ad sales, now being in control over offering placements for video and audio displays on the site. This transition looks to take place in early 2009, so fans of LaunchCast should have something to look forward to in the new year.
A Worthwhile Service?
I can’t reiterate enough how great of a move it was for Yahoo to offload the previously company maintained service onto CBS Radio. But I still can’t wrap my head around people who use the service and find it more valuable then the top services on the internet that offer the same if not better. I’m talking about Last.fm and Pandora.
Both of the above mentioned services offer users the ability to build their profiles and their listening preferences based on artists and genre of the user’s choice. The services will then continue to play the music that the algorithm believes you will like best. Sound simple enough, but when you add the social aspect to it by being able to share, connect, and see what others are listening to, the services are hard to beat.
I wish Yahoo luck with their re-launch, but I see services like this and AOL’s service quickly shrinking away into obscurity.
What’s your take on these services, and what do you see happening in the near future? Does anyone out there use LaunchCast? I’d especially like to hear your thoughts.
- Image by Gnal via Flickr
I worked as a journalist through college, and some after I graduated, and even today I am still producing content for both online and offline projects. As such, nothing infuriates me more then bad journalism, and lack of fact checking. Now before I get blasted, yes I’ve made mistakes, but nothing on the scale of the U.S. economy.
Over the weekend, TechCrunch along with several other media sites, pointed out an incident with The Times reporting a story on Yahoo’s possible bedding of Microsoft with their search technology. For those of us with keen eyes in the industry, the story was missing something, something we just couldn’t put our finger on…perhaps facts. TechCrunch tore the article apart by negating the supposed “facts” of the story and left the article with no leg to stand on. The key to this was that the markets were not open, otherwise a reputable paper printing material like that would have surely made an impact.
Now today, another story comes out announcing another Yahoo buyout story, this time regarding two AOL mavericks, Johnathon Miller and Ross Levinsohn. The article was bogus, the story unconfirmed, later confirmed that while the two were indeed raising money, and while they were having chat with Microsoft and Yahoo, there was no intent to purchase. This time the Wall Street Journal took the brunt of the backlash, and this time people did lose money. Stock for Yahoo jumped 11.7% which resulted in a lot of unhappy people.
This reminds me of a Twitter statement @1938media made regarding those that relied on social media as the “source” for information. “Dopes!” I believe was the word he used. Personally, I don’t know where the story came from, but where was the fact checking? In the rush to be the first to be in-the-know, a lot of people were effected by this financially. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to check facts and sources, and not always rely on the quick and easy. People need to use their own heads and thinks things through, interpret the information and make sound judgement.
You can read the entire TechCrunch article HERE.
When I think of AOL, I think of other similar companies like Microsoft and AT&T. What do they all
have in common? Basically all of them are large companies that think themselves at the top of their game and otherwise frown on smaller more open and approachable initiatives.
For the longest time AOL was an island unto itself. Until just recently AOL users were isolated from other users. The homepage was closed off to competitors, the ISP itself is not open to offering it’s users options, but rather forces them to believe that AOL is all there is.
Interestingly enough, as internet users wise up, and are introduced to various social media networks, connecting over the net with blogs and micro-blogging tools, the internet is a whole new world for users and professionals alike. AOL is finally facing this reality and has added a new feature right off their homepage. They are actually offering users the opportunity to select other email clients as opposed to forcing users to type in the desired destination.
As noted in the photo below you can see how Yahoo, Gmail, have all found a spot right on the AOL homepage (Hotmail access has also been added). This is a welcome addition for AOL users considering the response on the AOL blog post.
What does this mean for AOL? How will this impact their users and will they turn away from AOL Mail? No likely, many of us have multiple accounts for various uses; junkmail, newsletters, subscriptions, purchases, contact with friends and family. AOL is quoted as saying, “We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use and that you may, like many of us, have multiple email accounts with different providers.” So AOL looks to become the official “launchpad” for all their users online experience. This will prevent them from having to type in the address of their preferred email providers and instead provide instant access with a simple click.
AOL confesses that not all of their users will appreciate the change, but for those that don’t, they have made it easy for users to change out the panels in the menu with other popular selections such as Music, Radio, and eBay options to name a few.
With the emergence of a fully customizable homepage, AOL is taking a step in the right direction with their new approach. It is even hinted, according to Techcrunch, that come October AOL could add access to “bookmark[ing], social networks and a RSS reader.” At this rate AOL users will now have a one stop shop for all their online needs, and this is what AOL is banking on.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on this new approach by AOL. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been an AOL homepage user, and even longer since I was a subscriber to their ISP, but I find this approach innovative for them, if not a little late. I think this will keep AOL in the game, and I look forward to see what other ideas they plan to roll out.
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