12th
Another Letter to Yahoo
Dear Yahoo,
I have been using my.yahoo.com as my homepage since 1997. As you know, a few months ago you asked me to switch to the new My Yahoo! service. Since you have been my Internet home page for so long, I figured that I at least owed it to you to give it a shot. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t love it and switched back to the old version almost immediately.
I now see that “no” to the new My Yahoo! was not an acceptable answer. Sometime at the start of 08 you introduced a user testimonial of how great the new My Yahoo! is to the top of my homepage. And, instead of using the traditional testimonial identifiers - first name, last initial, home state - you felt it would be better to just use the testimonial giver’s first initial.
Today testimonial: “I absolutely love the Stock Portfolio module.” - B. (see above image)
So, yahoo, I have to ask you - What kind of reaction were you hoping to get here? “Wow! B. loves the Stock Portfolio module? I gotta change today!” If that’s the reaction you wanted, you failed miserably. Let me remind you that you are Yahoo!, not some late night infomercial company that has to rely on bullshit user testimonials. If you want to show me a testimonial, give me some real life user generated testimonials that show both good & bad reviews. Ill respect you more for it and be more persuaded to switch. And, don’t put it across the top of my homepage without giving me the option of turning the message off permanently. All you are doing is ruining my user experience.
This new testimonial campaign of your is backfiring, at least on me. If I do switch to the new My Yahoo!, it will be because you have annoyed me to the point of switching. And, once that happens, I am halfway towards making another switch - the switch to igoogle.
Your friend,
Jeremy