And the Band Plays On

So Microsoft has wised up and dropped their bid to acquire Yahoo!. Jerry has received a midnight reprieve and now has one final chance to really, really change his company. Saving Yahoo! will not be easy or pleasant. A lot of people and practices that have been around for a long time will have to go. Here are a few steps that I think are vital:

1. Open up the registration system. Why force new users who already have an email address to find a Yahoo! ID that hasn’t been taken and then go through the 10-15 minute process to get a Yahoo! ID? This is a roadblock for new users and should be eliminated. Instead, ask for:
   • e-mail address
   • Full Name
   • Age (required for legal reasons)

   If the user doesn’t have an email address or wants to get a Yahoo! email address, then the user can choose to go through a longer process.

2. Learn from the mistakes of YSM — AdWords is beating YSM because it’s younger and more nimble. When Yahoo! bought Overture, it decided to “upgrade” the YSM system (remember project Panama?). Instead, a complete overhaul was in order. Maybe the next candidate for an overhaul like this is 360.
3. One search box per page — What kind of crazy design is this? http://weather.yahoo.com/ Three input boxes, and the one that’s in the most prominent position doesn’t search weather. It searches news!

Entirely separate is the question of how to motivate people… Maybe I’ll have time to philosophize about that after finals are over.