I wondered how long it would take before Pageflakes responded to the new-look My Yahoo beta, given that the sharing and ‘pages’ features in My Yahoo beta are very similar to what Pageflakes has already done. Sure enough, the following quote by new Pageflakes CEO Dan Cohen was just emailed my way. And actually Dan is uniquely qualified to discuss this, as before becoming CEO of Pageflakes in January this year he was head of MyYahoo. Here is what he said:
“The new My Yahoo is a step forward but misses the mark. It is more about Yahoo! and less about today’s users of the Web, who expect more from their personalized page. Their new personalization feature steers you towards Yahoo! services while restricting access to others like Google and MySpace. The new version limits user choice because it isn’t open to developers. Lastly, you can’t publish your personalized page on the web, or collaborate on your page with others.”
What it comes down to is that Yahoo obviously has a huge store of content and Web properties it can utilize in its personalized homepage. Whereas Pageflakes is one of the ‘little guys’ (along with slightly bigger little guy Netvibes), so its strengths and opportunities will be in opening up its platform and encouraging use of content from all over the Web.
Also noteworthy is Steve Rubel’s response to My Yahoo Beta. Steve thinks that Yahoo has “abandoned the geeks”. I see his point, which is that geeks usually prefer the early adopter apps from Google and, yes, even Microsoft. Yahoo’s user base is huge and very mainstream, so who can blame them for focusing on that. But actually I think what the beta My Yahoo is doing is very much in tune with what geeks (like me) want. Also Yahoo has done some neat geeky things of late, particularly with Yahoo Pipes. I don’t think they’ve abandoned the geeks, there’s still enough for us to play with. But let’s face it, geeks are obviously not their biggest priority.
Update:Greg Linden picks up on the theme of personalization in the My Yahoo Beta, noting that it may also be applied to the Yahoo home page – i.e. both My Yahoo and yahoo.com “may soon adapt to your behavior and try to learn what you might want.”
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)