Yahoo Puts on a New Face

Yahoo's new home page (in beta) consolidates some sections while bringing more information to users without requiring a page reload.

It's the first major redesign of Yahoo's home page in almost 2 years. Narrowing the footprint of some sections while increasing navigating news and others should lead to more traffic. Also, the ad placement is similar, but the cleaner interface makes them stand out more. The design improvements from Yahoo et al will put pressure on advertisers to create more attention-grabbing and sophisticated ads as well. For example, advertisers could use dynamic tabs to showcase multiple products or offers without reloading.

There is a new text ad above the Yahoo bar (sacrilege!), but it is so small as to not offend.

Yahoo's delivering all things (and not just search) to all people and more prominent advertising could help the company to catch Google. Eventually (2007?) Google will cave and introduce ads on its home page.