Joie de My Yahoo!.

August 21, 2007 on 11:03 am |

Hello!

Hello out there in My Yahoo! land,

I’ve been using My Yahoo! for many years, so it was pretty exciting when I got the chance to join the team last summer. Like many of you, I found my first exposure to the new product to be a little bit rough (of course, it wasn’t even an “alpha” back then). I also discovered that working on a product makes it just that–work. So by this spring, I was hardly using My Yahoo! anymore, except as part of my job.

But then, a few weeks ago, something changed. I found myself at home on a Saturday afternoon using My Yahoo! to check movie showtimes at a nearby theater, get a laugh from a couple of my favorite humor blogs, read up on some recipes, and catch up on news about my personal interests. After about an hour of contented puttering around on My “just for fun,” it hit me: my dormant “joie de My Yahoo!” had re-awakened!

As a product manager who spends a lot of time thinking about the user experience, this made me pretty happy, because it was a clear sign that we are on the right track with the new My Yahoo!. There’s no doubt that we’ve still got work to do, but I’m confident we’ll get there.

Before I sign off, here’s a little trick I discovered: you can make a “backup” of any of your My Yahoo! pages using the “Share this page” feature. Just share the page with yourself! You’ll get an e-mail with a link that you can use to restore the page should you ever accidentally delete it, misplace one of your favorite modules, etc.

Hello!

Thanks for your time and continued usage of My Yahoo!.

–james
My Yahoo! Product Manager

10 Comments »

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  1. So I’ve been following all of your posts about all the new my yahoo features, local, share, stocks, etc.

    However, they look completely different when I add them to my page, or they never really ‘add’ themselves correctly. Am I using some old page format that never got updated? I’m very confused about how it’s suppposed to look. I also don’t see a share this page anywhere.

    Comment by Aaron — August 21, 2007 #

  2. James, I’ll see you in a few weeks with my Joie intact.

    Comment by Eric — August 21, 2007 #

  3. I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way about My Yahoo!

    I’m sure a lot of other people feel this way about it. The web doesn’t have to be work, it can be fun too.

    Thanks for pointing this out, Mr. Sievert!

    Comment by shanan — August 21, 2007 #

  4. I don’t know how to start a blog or even where to start one. I would love to comment on life, but don’t know how to do it.
    Thanks for sharing the tip on “sharing this page”. I never thought of it - I can save the days links this way?

    Comment by Mary Martin — August 22, 2007 #

  5. Can’t start a blog either. or finish one Like to read,though.

    Comment by rhiannon — August 23, 2007 #

  6. Thanks for sharing this page.

    Comment by rhiannon — August 23, 2007 #

  7. Hi James. I’ve been using My Yahoo ever since it first started. I’m a diehard user. Tonight I decided to try the Beta and for the first time in a long time, I was really excited about using it.

    Movie times, Netflix Queue, daily news, my wife’s blog on RSS feed, web-comics and a quicker view of my e-mail… all of it is very cool and I love it.

    Just get the bugs worked out so that I’m not waiting too long for the Netflix Queue to actually work right, or for my wife’s blog to stay on the screen without causing an error, or for my e-mail to notify me when I’ve got a new message. Some of these things are really great and I can’t wait for them to work just right.

    Comment by Ike — August 24, 2007 #

  8. Well, I don’t work on the website every day, but I use it every day. So I tried the “beta”.

    One of the nice features about MyYahoo is that the things that I want to see most are on the top of the page. News, weather, and my mail.

    With beta I get an advertisement, news, and a thing that says that my mail can be accessed by a “personal assistant” at the top of the page which, quite frankly, isn’t there.

    Personally, I hope you stop having so much fun with the new beta and instead get to work so that I don’t have to find a different service to use.

    Comment by Dapiek — August 26, 2007 #

  9. Sooooo slow. Both beta mail and MyYahoo are so very painfully slow. I’ve not yet reverted to the old versions, in hopes the speed issue will soon be solved, but I’m very close to making that backward switch.

    Comment by Steve — August 28, 2007 #

  10. Hi, For two weeks now I have been trying to log into my Yahoo Mail and my Yahoo IM account but I get a message that says I have the wrong information. I have had this account for several years and do not understand what happened to kick me out of my account. I want to keep my ID but don’t care if I have to change my password. Can someone please help me since IM is how I communicate with everyone and they probably think I fell off the face of the earth. Thank you.
    Paula

    Comment by Paula Nadeau (Porter) — October 19, 2007 #

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