Yahoo! Grows Up
I’ve been a big fan of Google since it’s inception, and I must say that they do a lot of things right: their serach is amazing, GMail is my favorite webmail service, and Blogger may just be the best free hosted blog service in the world. However, I must admit that Yahoo! has come a long way in the past few months, and it looks like they may be the one web company that has learned from Google and is building services that people want to use.
A few examples of this stand out, the first being Yahoo! Mail’s decision to up their storage capacity to 1Gb to compete with GMail. GMail, running on AJAX, is still miles ahead, but Yahoo! Mail is slowly making headway into a market where MSN Hotmail is still king, but is losing ground quickly.
Another example is Yahoo! Movies, which is quietly taking aim at sites like Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and perhaps even IMDB. By aggregating showtimes, critics reviews, user reviews, trailers and previews, and film information, Yahoo! is slowly becoming the one-stop place to go for all your movie-watching needs. Though the repository of information isn’t as extensive as IMDB, it is perfect for the casual Hollywood movie watcher.
In the past month, Yahoo! has done three significant things that prove that they have a clear vision of where they want to go; Yahoo! isn’t just an ignored portal anymore. The first of this was launching a Creative Commons search, which has led them credibility among the world of online personal publishing (and some geek cred as well). The second was the announcement of Yahoo 360, a hosted blogging and social networking tool which seems to be modeled on a LJ-type basis, but is promising much more — and is garnering decent reviews.
Finally, what is perhaps most exciting — for me at least — is Yahoo!’s acquisition of Flickr, which is possibly the most-discussed business move on the web right now. Flickr is definitely one of the best tools on the web right now, and there is tremendous possibility for Yahoo! to not only integrate Flickr’s social networking into their fold, but to learn from Flickr’s amazing interface and excellent use of technology such as Javascript and Flash. Plus, maybe eventually, they’ll get rid of the horrible Yahoo! Photos.
Other things such as The Buzz Game (very entertaining and educational), and the Yahoo! Publisher Network (can’t wait until this launches) and the new look for Yahoo! Groups (better than Google Groups Beta?) are just added proof that Yahoo! knows what people want and are going to do everything to make sure that they can provide what people need.
Paul Bausch has already begun work on Yahoo! Hacks, a part of the popular O’Reilly Hacks Series, and its publication will only further serve to exemplify Yahoo!’s comeback on the scene. Om Malik has a great post on his website on How Yahoo! Got Its Mojo Back, which partly inspired this post as well.
As much as I love Google, Yahoo! is growing up, and seems to be, in many cases, the new place to find the information and web services you need. I’m excited to see where Terry, Jerry, David, Dan, and Susan are going next.