My Yahoo gets the Marissa Mayer redesign treatment

Marissa Mayer’s ongoing quest to change absolutely everything about Yahoo continues with a redesign of My Yahoo, the site’s customizable landing page.

My Yahoo was last refreshed in 2008, and boy was that obvious. My Yahoo is still a landing page for your most-used services—calendars, stocks, sports, etc. But the portal now looks a million times better. Gone are the boring blue background and white, text-heavy cards containing your news, e-mail, weather, and more.

The My Yahoo redesign offers customized themes from big-name designers, artists, and musicians.

The redesign allows you to customize your Yahoo page with themes from artists, fashion designers, and bands. Want Oscar de la Renta’s personal stamp on your My Yahoo page? Do it. My Yahoo also lets you pull in content from your favorite sites, like Epicurious and Politico. The cards and columns are now transparent overlays, so you can see that awesome background you picked to express your personality.

The redesign comes as no surprise. Mayer is leaving no stone unturned in her campaign to bring Yahoo into the 21st century. A redesigned home page paved the way for new and revived products, apps, and even a new logo. Yahoo News, Yahoo Mail, the company’s Weather app, Flickr, and more have all gone through the Marissa Mayer overhaul this year.

Not every change has been a popular one—that logo could still use some work—but Mayer’s persistence is noteworthy, and by some measures, it’s been successful.

If you want to give My Yahoo a try, you can import your settings from Google and let us know how the transition goes. If you liked My Yahoo the way it was before, you can keep it. But why would you want to?

Caitlin writes about all things social media. She is addicted to the 24-hour news cycle and Mission burritos.
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Yahoo says it gave the feds info for most data requests received in first half of 2013

Yahoo received 12,444 requests from the U.S. government for user data in the first half of this year, resulting in 11,402 instances of data disclosure, it said Friday in its first transparency report.

For nearly 7,000 of the U.S. requests between Jan. 1 and June 30, only non-content data was disclosed, such as basic subscriber information including email and IP addresses, billing information, names and locations, Yahoo said.

But more than 4,500 U.S. government data requests resulted in the disclosure of actual content like communications from users’ Mail and Messenger accounts, Yahoo Address Book entries, files uploaded, and photos on Flickr, according to the report.

The total number of accounts specified in Yahoo’s government data requests comprised less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of Yahoo’s worldwide user base, according to the company.

Governments of 17 countries made nearly 30,000 data requests involving almost 63,000 Yahoo accounts, the report said.

The report was released amid a series of leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden regarding the government’s ability to gather data from people’s digital communications, ostensibly in the interest of national security. One of the most high-profile leaks concerns a program known as Prism, which reportedly enables the NSA to collect data from Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other tech companies.

Since the first leaks in June by Snowden to media outlets including the Guardian and The New York Times, tech companies such as Google and Microsoft have asked for permission to provide greater clarity about the number of national security requests they receive specifically.

Currently, companies can reveal the number of requests made under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act only if they lump them together with all other requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Yahoo, therefore, did not break out its national security requests. “We include national security requests within the scope of our aggregate statistics,” Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell said in a blog post.

Also, the report only reflects Yahoo’s data—not data from Tumblr users, the company said. Yahoo announced its acquisition of the social blogging site in May. Tumblr will issue its own transparency report at a later date, Yahoo said.

Yahoo claims to have 700 million active users total across 60 countries. The company does not reveal its number of active U.S. users.

Yahoo said it regularly pushes back against improper requests for user data, including fighting requests that are unclear or unlawful, Bell said.

Yahoo plans to update its transparency report every six months.

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Yahoo freshens its image with a new logo

IDG News Service - Yahoo's logo is now a little bit sleeker, under a redesign unveiled Wednesday in keeping with the company's reinvention efforts.

The Internet company previously had a blockier-type font for its purple logo, its letters slightly out of alignment. The new look is slimmed down and more horizontally lined up, but still purple. The logo's characteristic exclamation point also remains intact.

"We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products," said Yahoo chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt, in a blog post describing the changes.

The new logo will begin appearing across Yahoo properties globally starting Wednesday night, the company said.

While the new logo is not a dramatic departure, it represents Yahoo's latest effort to add some shine to a brand that has lost its luster. Previously one of the most powerful Internet companies in Silicon Valley, Yahoo has seen its relevance dip in recent years with the rise of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and search engines like Google.

To reinvent itself, the company over the past year has gobbled up a slew of smaller mobile players through acquisitions and re-launched numerous products internally -- actions described by CEO Marissa Mayer as a "series of sprints" to catch up with its competitors.

Yahoo announced early last month that a new logo was on the way, as part of the company's larger plans to reinvent itself. Since then the company has displayed different variations of its logo on its homepage and across its sites.

Yahoo has been busy applying other cosmetic changes to its sites over the last several months. Last week the company rolled out a series of changes to give a more consistent look to many of its mobile properties. Other redesigns for the desktop were announced prior to that.

Marissa Mayer took the helm as CEO of Yahoo in July 2012.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Yahoo freshens its image with a new logo

IDG News Service - Yahoo's logo is now a little bit sleeker, under a redesign unveiled Wednesday in keeping with the company's reinvention efforts.

The Internet company previously had a blockier-type font for its purple logo, its letters slightly out of alignment. The new look is slimmed down and more horizontally lined up, but still purple. The logo's characteristic exclamation point also remains intact.

"We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products," said Yahoo chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt, in a blog post describing the changes.

The new logo will begin appearing across Yahoo properties globally starting Wednesday night, the company said.

While the new logo is not a dramatic departure, it represents Yahoo's latest effort to add some shine to a brand that has lost its luster. Previously one of the most powerful Internet companies in Silicon Valley, Yahoo has seen its relevance dip in recent years with the rise of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and search engines like Google.

To reinvent itself, the company over the past year has gobbled up a slew of smaller mobile players through acquisitions and re-launched numerous products internally -- actions described by CEO Marissa Mayer as a "series of sprints" to catch up with its competitors.

Yahoo announced early last month that a new logo was on the way, as part of the company's larger plans to reinvent itself. Since then the company has displayed different variations of its logo on its homepage and across its sites.

Yahoo has been busy applying other cosmetic changes to its sites over the last several months. Last week the company rolled out a series of changes to give a more consistent look to many of its mobile properties. Other redesigns for the desktop were announced prior to that.

Marissa Mayer took the helm as CEO of Yahoo in July 2012.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Yahoo looks to freshen its image with a new logo

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The comeback kid: How Yahoo, a site your friends never visit, dominates the Internet

When comScore reported on Thursday that Yahoo was the No. 1 most-visited website in the country—overtaking Google for the first time in two years—I admit I was surprised.

It wasn’t the Tumblr Effect. comScore counted Tumblr traffic separately—the microblogging site hovered at No. 28 in July. So if none of your friends use Yahoo, who does? A comScore spokesperson told TechHive the jump wasn’t attributable to any particular reason—rather, many of Yahoo’s sites, or channels, saw traffic increases.

I’m willing to bet Yahoo Mail saw a significant jump in July—that’s when Yahoo announced its plans to recycle inactive email accounts. Users who probably hadn’t visited Yahoo in months, even years, were encouraged to revive their accounts or reserve new screennames. No figures are available following that media blitz, but it’s a sure bet that users flocked to Yahoo to reserve names that had to sound better than the random words paired with a series of numbers that characterized many Yahoo accounts in the early aughts (“softballchick345678,” anyone?).

Yahoo Mail's campaign likely boosted traffic in July.

But aside from email users, who are all these Web surfers visiting Yahoo on their desktops? People obviously aren’t using Yahoo as their main search engine, which is how Google gains a large share of traffic. For instance, searches typed into Chrome’s navigation bar that turn up Google search results count as hits for Google, the comScore rep said. Yahoo doesn’t have that perk. The site ranked third behind Google and Microsoft in July with a paltry 11 percent of search engine traffic.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has coordinated a killer public relations campaign for the company, which went from fuddy-duddy search engine to thriving media brand in a year. From the telecommuting policy she controversially ended to the 17-year-old entrepreneur she bought out for $30 million, Mayer knows how to make headlines. But that can’t be what’s driving Yahoo traffic, can it?

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer

That leaves older Internet users, many of whom set Yahoo as their home page before Google was a twinkle in the eyes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It’s worth noting that comScore doesn’t include mobile traffic in its numbers. Can a website really win the Internet without mobile traffic to back it up? Probably not.

Until Yahoo can sustain its Internet domination, we’ll call July’s numbers a one-off. But watch your back, Google. Yahoo is clearly circling the nest. The company's second-quarter profits were up 46 percent and Yahoo has launched almost a dozen new products since Mayer took the helm. A front page redesign, Flickr relaunch, new mobile apps, and other Mayer-led initiatives prove that Yahoo is in it to win it. The company's next project: A new logo to reflect the new Yahoo.

Caitlin writes about all things social media. She is addicted to the 24-hour news cycle and Mission burritos.
More by Caitlin McGarry

View the original article here

The comeback kid: How Yahoo, a site your friends never visit, dominates the Internet

When comScore reported on Thursday that Yahoo was the No. 1 most-visited website in the country—overtaking Google for the first time in two years—I admit I was surprised.

It wasn’t the Tumblr Effect. comScore counted Tumblr traffic separately—the microblogging site hovered at No. 28 in July. So if none of your friends use Yahoo, who does? A comScore spokesperson told TechHive the jump wasn’t attributable to any particular reason—rather, many of Yahoo’s sites, or channels, saw traffic increases.

I’m willing to bet Yahoo Mail saw a significant jump in July—that’s when Yahoo announced its plans to recycle inactive email accounts. Users who probably hadn’t visited Yahoo in months, even years, were encouraged to revive their accounts or reserve new screennames. No figures are available following that media blitz, but it’s a sure bet that users flocked to Yahoo to reserve names that had to sound better than the random words paired with a series of numbers that characterized many Yahoo accounts in the early aughts (“softballchick345678,” anyone?).

Yahoo Mail's campaign likely boosted traffic in July.

But aside from email users, who are all these Web surfers visiting Yahoo on their desktops? People obviously aren’t using Yahoo as their main search engine, which is how Google gains a large share of traffic. For instance, searches typed into Chrome’s navigation bar that turn up Google search results count as hits for Google, the comScore rep said. Yahoo doesn’t have that perk. The site ranked third behind Google and Microsoft in July with a paltry 11 percent of search engine traffic.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has coordinated a killer public relations campaign for the company, which went from fuddy-duddy search engine to thriving media brand in a year. From the telecommuting policy she controversially ended to the 17-year-old entrepreneur she bought out for $30 million, Mayer knows how to make headlines. But that can’t be what’s driving Yahoo traffic, can it?

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer

That leaves older Internet users, many of whom set Yahoo as their home page before Google was a twinkle in the eyes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It’s worth noting that comScore doesn’t include mobile traffic in its numbers. Can a website really win the Internet without mobile traffic to back it up? Probably not.

Until Yahoo can sustain its Internet domination, we’ll call July’s numbers a one-off. But watch your back, Google. Yahoo is clearly circling the nest. The company's second-quarter profits were up 46 percent and Yahoo has launched almost a dozen new products since Mayer took the helm. A front page redesign, Flickr relaunch, new mobile apps, and other Mayer-led initiatives prove that Yahoo is in it to win it. The company's next project: A new logo to reflect the new Yahoo.

Caitlin writes about all things social media. She is addicted to the 24-hour news cycle and Mission burritos.
More by Caitlin McGarry

View the original article here