When new CEO Carol Bartz took the reign at Yahoo she promised to shake things up a bit and she held true to her promise. For the past several month, Yahoo has improved their UI and discontinued less popular services like the 'briefcase". Last week they launched access to "applications" right from your Yahoo inbox. I love the direction they are going. I have been using Yahoo Mail for as long as I can think and must admit I never got used to the Gmail interface. I might be a bit old fashioned that way. Y! Mail also launched the "Connections Bar" a few weeks ago, but it seems to be removed from the interface now. I believe it is an attempt to integrate popular social networking features into your mailbox. The only issue is that you have to invite people to become connections and then it just seems like a filter for your inbox. Hopefully they have some more ideas to make this feature more valuable.
I like that they are making an effort to improve their services. I did, however, notice that Yahoo has a tendency to launch buggy services. Maybe they put more emphasis on speed to market and less on quality. I did just get a serious browser error when I tried to active my Flickr account in the application below. Generally I am a firm believer in high quality, because to me, first impressions can make or break a deal. Plus some folks may never go back and try it a second time if it hasn't worked the first time. Well...I cut the folks at Yahoo some slack because I like my Y! Mail.
How do you feel about companies being too quick to launch something that still has a few kinks?
Sonja Scharrer
Strategists & Planners
Comments (4)
Better to launch an imperfect software product early rather than getting stuck in a protracted internal development cycle. The internal group's idea of complete and perfect is likely not to be the same as the user base anyway. Releasing beta or having an open source mentality seems to a better formula for success. Google to online gaming companies have shown this to be true.
Posted on June 23, 2009 13:03
Well, imagine a startup launching a buggy product. That startup would end up be short lived, right?
What allows Yahoos and MSNs and Googs to launch buggy products is that level of pre-existing affinity that people have for the products already in existence and the level of trust that people have that those companies will improve the products. But over time, the more you launch buggy crap the more you erode the trust and the affinity.
We have watched this happen over the past three years with Apple. Yes, people still love Apple. But now they have a rep for being a company that will launch cool stuff with lots of bugs and problems and unresolved issues and then fix (some or most of) them later (and, ahem, cut the prices). So all this becomes part of your brand.
When Yahoo "innovates" we all step back a bit and wait to see what blows up.
Posted on June 23, 2009 21:02
Buggy software is ok as long as it recognizes that's it's not finished and is thrown open for feedback and improvement. Esp if the services are free. S/w can be fixed and this approach has been why/how web 2.0 has been able to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks too.
As for Yahoo! I've been a fan of its new look, but my UK-based a/c doesn't offer free pop mail so moving to Gmail would be kinda painful. And like you, the interface isn't my favorite. Those tags kinda annoy me. :)
Posted on June 24, 2009 08:58
I can see both sides. I think it's fine to launch a buggy site if you're a small startup that doesn't have much of an audience, but Yahoo! should enough money and staff to really test it. Then again, real users provide the best feedback. I can see why they'd want to launch and as users comment, make changes.
Posted on June 24, 2009 17:17