Yovav (Jay) Meydad's Personal Blog

Back in Oct 2008 Yahoo was testing a new homepage. This version of the homepage has not become live yet and probably won’t given the fact that Yahoo has now a new CEO, Carol Bratz, that has a very clear vision for the company. A vision that is also reflected in the new version of the homepage I just got (probably as part of a small percentage test Yahoo is running) – big focus on search, display advertising and a better portal to generate more page views on the Yahoo network.

Couple of observations:

• The header height was shaved by a few pixels, the Yahoo logo was moved right next to the search box instead of above it, and almost all of the essential information is viewable above the fold! pretty impressive that Yahoo was able to achieve that without getting eliminating links and content that is on the current homepage

• The expandable tabs that are used in the left side bar (called Favorites) make the home page extremely extensible with all sorts of information and applications, from Yahoo properties (Finance, Messenger, Flickr, movies) and partners (eBay, NPR, BBC, and more). It is also great for advertising since there is a medium rectangle ad (most desirable ad size on the market) on every tab. This should increase the number of home page ad impressions sagnificantly. Anyone wanys to model what it will do to the stock price?

• Yahoo clearly wants you to do more searches and that’s why they moved the “popular searches” box to the top and made it so prominent

• Yahoo also wants to regain their position as a portal to the Yahoo network. That’s why they:

(a) placed the link “View Yahoo! Sites” which expands to a directory of all the Yahoo sites at the top of the Favorites left bar

(b) moved the articles section to the top and increased its size from 5 to 10 links

• One very interesting application that was pre-installed for me on the favorites bar was MySpace. I wonder if that is a first sign for a deal that might happen between MySpace/FIM and Yahoo (the Google deal is supposed to end in mid 2010) or is that just a traffic aquisition campaign mySpace is running on Yahoo

Overall, I like the new design. It is lighter, cleaner and the information is organized in a more logical and accessible way compared to the existing homepage. Who knows, if this version will eventually become the live one, I might switch my homepage back to Yahoo like in the good old days.

Update: According to Sillicon Alley Insider, this new homepage is not a test but a phased rollout.

Here are some photos of the new design

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Remembering my childhood friends, Amnon Kadmon (died Nov 26, 1990) & Shaul Hilevitch (died Oct 29, 1991) and my wife’s boyfriend at the time Nir Evron (died Feb 2, 1994). It has been almost 20 years and I can not stop thinking what if…

If you love music and read Hebrew you should make a habit and read Haoneg, a fantastic blog written by Guyha.

Beyond being a very talented writer and someone with great taste in music, Guy is also running a small label called Hiss Records that signs artists he and his partner, Morphlexis, love to hear.

This is how I was introduced to Nadav Azulay and his debut album that was produced by Hiss. From my first listening to Nadav I was blown away by his personal lyrics, music and signing. This young guy is an evidence that there are some great young Israeli rockers out there. It is just a little harder to discover them.

You can listening to the full album & read the lyrics on this bandcamp page.

If you want to learn more about Nadav and his music listen to this radio interview. Beyond the chit chat, Nadav and his partner, Gil Nemet, performed live many of the album songs and a few others unplugged. And if you fast forward 12:30 minutes into the mp3, you will hear a live performance where Gil plays drums and piano at the same time!

And here’s a taste of Nadav and his band in action, something I hope to see in person on my next trip to Israel.

I hope you all have a good Passover. The Huffington Post has an interesting article about Passover traditions from all around the world.

Happy Freedom Holiday.

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i send the locusts on a wind (365-169) – happy passover from the ten plagues!, originally uploaded by michele cat.