I've spent the past week or so playing with the new Beta version of My Yahoo. The new version is a Web 2.0 - ified version of Yahoo's longstanding portal interface.
The new version is very ajaxy. It takes its cues from RSS readers like NetVibes and PageFlakes. It's a lot more customizable than the previous version, allowing you to select two, three or four column views and to drag & drop sets of content around the screen. I'm not sure how many of their users will actually do the customization, after all the more geeky types will probably still use independent apps like NetVibes.
That said, the new facelift has some pretty useful new features. For one, they made it easy to add topical pages that might be useful for a short period. For example, I quickly added a "March Madness" page, which I'll delete at the end of the NCAA tournament.
They've also added a new My Yahoo Reader. This RSS reader, which clearly seems based on NetVibes, is a popup window that allows you to quickly navigate from one article to the next.
Overall, the new beta is an improvement. While the tech crowd may have moved past My Yahoo, they remain well-positioned to be the Start page for the mainstream user.
Going forward, I'd like to see Yahoo do a better job of integrating some of their acquisitions; a few people have commented on the lack of widgets in this new portal. For a more comprehensive review of the new My Yahoo, take a look at Read/Write Web's post.
You can sign up for the My Yahoo beta here.
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