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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The new home page is much cleaner and lighter that the previous one. The focus is put on search (note the yellow halo around the search bar), user’s personalized applications (mail, weather, stocks, movies, local events, etc.) and news.

A few changes to highlight:

1. Bye-bye red logo. The home page logo is also wearing purple.

2. Bye-bye white background. Say hello to the blue-gray gradient frame around the page’s content.

3. The “My Applications” box was moved to the left and increased. When you click on an application, a slider opens to the right to provide a large preview area.

4. A few boxes that existed on the old page are gone (Marketplace, Small Businesses, Today’s top searches). This helps reduce the noise and put focus on the key services – search, applications and news.

Here are couple of screen shots of the new page. More photos here.

and the old page with Halloween logo…

Well, it looks like something is cooking and soon a new home page will be launched. The question I asked myself is, by who: iDigital or Rami Prashove, the current owner of the domain? and what is going to happen to this blog’s traffic?