I admire you as a leader, and I respect the fact that you are able to both operate at an executive level as well as roll up your proverbial sleeves and code. It is because I think you are receptive to feedback that I am writing to you to share some thoughts about a few of your Yahoo assets that I've used for many years.
First, Yahoo Mail. I love the fact that I have unlimited storage space on Yahoo Mail. Because I often send and receive photos through email, the unlimited storage is probably the main reason I maintain my Yahoo Mail account. The other reason is that you've done a pretty darn good job with the spam filter. But let me offer some constructive criticism as well. You're trying to do too much with Yahoo Mail. The conversation threading is nice, but sometimes it is hard for me to follow which part of the thread I am reading and which item in the thread an action (e.g., delete) applies to, and so I have disabled the threading option. You're also getting too cute with the web page preview function when you paste a link in an email. Don't do this by default, I almost never want it. Rather, let me mouse over the link and let me expand the link into a preview. Otherwise you're just getting in my way. Another suggestion I have is to speed up the sending and receiving of email messages. With other email clients like Gmail, incoming and outgoing messages are processed within seconds, whereas with Yahoo Mail, it almost always takes minutes. Oh, and today you prevented me from sending an email altogether because you thought *I* was sending spam. I was sending a link to myself to remind me to read it later. Here's the message I received from Yahoo Mail:
So I did add some text and tried to re-send, but I got the same message again. I added even more text and resent, but again I received the same message. Eventually I gave up and used my trusty Gmail account instead. Gmail lets me get stuff done--it does a great job at performing core email functions very well. I wish Yahoo Mail could do the same thing reliably, but today it falls noticeably short.
Next let's talk about Yahoo Sports. I used to use Yahoo Mail almost exclusively to follow my favorite college and professional teams. But now you've tried to "fancy up" the site and in the process have reduced its usability. For example, when looking at a team's complete score history, you list the scores and put the higher score in bold, but it's hard to tell if MY team won or lost, especially since my team flip flops from the right side to left side depending on whether it was a home or away game. You used to put "W" or "L" in a column so I could easily tell, but now you make me work to figure it out. Bring back the W/L column please! Also, you've peppered the pages with ridiculous ads. I know that you need revenue to sustain your business, but could you at least make the ads less intrusive? It used to be that your ads were clearly offset to the top or sides of a page, but now you have listings of your stories (each with a photo and caption) with ads embedded within the listings. It simply feels less professional, and I don't enjoy your Sports pages as much so I visit other sports sites more frequently now.
Oh, I almost forgot to address Yahoo Search. Ironically, the reason I almost forgot to provide feedback is because I almost never use it. I'm not sure what algorithms you use for your search engine, but for the exact same search criteria, I usually find Google's search engine to deliver more relevant results, especially if I'm looking for something highly specific or esoteric. I get the sense that you are trying to differentiate Yahoo from Google by making Yahoo more of a content company at heart than Google which is more of a search company. However, I think you actually draw a lot of attention away from search. Even though www.yahoo.com has a search bar at the top, one's attention is directed toward the photos and stories farther down the page. And although you have search.yahoo.com dedicated to search, I never go there, and I would suspect that few others do either.
Finally, I'd like to conclude with comments about Yahoo Weather. Frankly I think you nailed it. Both the web site and your mobile app do things very nicely--that is, to provide the current weather and the forecast. I like your use of local images for the background as well as the Monthly Trends and Sun & Moon information boxes. And you've partnered nicely with weather.com for the extended forecast.
I know that I'm just 1 user, but my recommendation would be to provide a better user experience with Mail and Sports. Let's not get too cute with features and functions. Make sure you've covered the basics and implemented them well. Then if you want to add frills, make them options that people can toggle on/off as they please, but don't thrust upon your users things that they may never want to see or use. Best wishes with the turnaround of Yahoo.
Sincerely,
Digital Daddy in L.A.
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