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bye.yahoo.com?
I have used my.yahoo.com for the past ten years as my start page.
Honestly, I love it as much today as ever. The addition of RSS has allowed me to customize my yahoo and I have my top ten RSS feeds at the top of the page along wtih stock prices, weather, and top news.
So it was disturbing to me to see Brad Feld's post titled The Coming Irrelevance Of My.Yahoo For Me.
Brad makes the case for replacing my yahoo with an exclusively RSS-driven experience via a high volume feed reader like Feed Demon.
I don't think I am as ready to do that as Brad is. I find the filtering I do manually (by selecting my top 10 feeds for my start page) helps me avoid drowning in information.
When I told this to Brad in an email, he replied that he needed to teach me how to use a feed reader. I replied that maybe he needs to teach me how to read at 10mbps!
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Tracked on Jan 27, 2006 2:36:50 PM
Posted January 27, 2006 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
Have to admit that like Brad I was a long-time user of MyYahoo but recently switched away - but I also agree that I didn't want all my feeds there all the time. There are various new AJAX based start-page offers out there which offer a good combination of customizability, fun-to-use and relevance. The one I use is Netvibes, but there are many others out there...
Posted by: Tony Zappala | Jan 27, 2006 8:44:30 AM
I too am a long time MyYahoo user, have it as my default start page and don't see myself replacing it anytime soon.
There's something comfortable about it and it helps that it is both reliable and fast. I have been using the feed reader in Onfolio which I love and have lots of feeds flowing into with my own set of "channels". and now have FireAnt added to the mix. I'm looking forward to see how Yahoo with integrate del.icio.us with My.Yahoo.
To pick up on Brad's point about watching stock quotes, I often wonder about the health (mental and physical) effects of information addiction (both as consumers and now as contributors). On one hand it can be stimulating for the mind but it can also make us slaves to our devices. I was struck by this as I was spending my rides up the chair lift at Sunday River earlier this week sending photos to SkiBonk.com! http://www.skibonk.com/ski/index.jsp?query=maine
Posted by: Myron Kassaraba | Jan 27, 2006 3:37:27 PM
Very disappointed to hear that Brad, for whom I have the highest respect, has succumbed to the mania that I call Coastal VC RSS Messiah Syndrome.
Friends, in the rest of the country, in the heart of middle America, in major metropolitan markets, there are people: smart people, even VC's and merchant bankers who have NEVER HEARD of RSS. Even worse are those who pretend to grok it but have never used it, even in the context of My Yahoo.
And consumer adoption is almost as bad.
If there is one bit of Media 2.0 hubris (and I'm guilty of many others) that needs to die, it's the notion that RSS feeds are the mass-market editors of 2006.
Don't get me wrong-- I believe a media of ultimate customization is nigh. But most people are lazy. And even lazy people buy stuff. Yahoo! and others who cater to them are going to rake it in.
Posted by: Mike Orren | Jan 27, 2006 9:24:38 PM
Maybe you should try TailRank's filter support. You'll have to login and import your OPML but after that it will only show you hot stories that match the filter.
This is the main reason why I started the company.
We're not 1.0 just yet and I'd be the first to admit that the usability needs a bit more work. We have to make it easier for newbies without OPML to use the system.
Only a couple of weeks to go though...
If you have any feedback let me know... I'm all ears!
Posted by: Kevin Burton | Jan 28, 2006 1:49:50 AM
RE people who have never heard of RSS - I couldn't agree more. 80% of people just don't get this stuff.
Why do I want to subscribe a feed? What's a feed? What's that little button there? I have to download what?
It's hard for most people.. what they want is TV for the blogosphere. They want to be TOLD want to read...
This is why I designed the default view of TailRank to be global blogs... after that the remaining 5-15% of RSS-aware users can customize it to their liking...
Kevin
(PS.. hope this doesn't seem like a product plug... Trying to be sincere...)
Posted by: Kevin Burton | Jan 28, 2006 1:53:23 AM
I don't really use MyYahoo for much any more.
As for news readers, I've been using something called SharpReader over the past few weeks which is quite impressive.
Posted by: Dave | Jan 28, 2006 8:49:18 PM
I'm a ten-year myYahoo user too. It's a habit I can't seem to break. Lately I've been happily using the RSS features and AJAX'y goodness of moving content around the page by simply dragging and dropping. At first, I thought this was a very nice UI upgrade. Recently, I added some new content and rearranged the positioning a bit, and now upon auto-reload my myYahoo page scrambles my content order with complete unpredictibility. Doonesbury suddenly is at the top of the fold. At the next reload, Doonesbury is replaced by Cnet news. Suddenly, The Onion mysteriously shows up at the top replacing the NY Times Op/Ed. Am I alone in this? Anyone else fighting myYahoo bugs?
Totally frustrating. I expect this from a start-up, but not from a multi-billion juggernaut with millions of users and corporate-level resources. Although I suppose MSFT does it to me all the time...
Posted by: Peter Cochran | Mar 17, 2006 5:51:50 PM
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