Yahoo Rethinks the Homepage

Despite everything Jerry Yang has taken the blame for, as of late Yahoo has really been impressive from a developers perspective. It wasn’t too long ago that they opened up their search engine with an API called BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), more recently launched Browser Plus for developers interested in the cloud and the desktop and their other baby Fire Eagle is blazing it’s way into web apps everywhere. Now they’ve announced they’re opening up their homepage for developers to build applications.

Does this Matter

Previously Yahoo only allowed developers to rework specific areas of their site like my.yahoo.com, or through their API. With the reworking of their homepage, though, Yahoo is allowing developers to create widgets and applications not unlike what you can now do on iGoogle, LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace. In doing so, allowing their audience of 314 million people to begin communicating more socially. If this turns out to be anything like their competitors products (which allow for profit sharing and monetization), it’s possible that this will allow for a whole new ecosystem for developers to tap in to. Much-like when Facebook opened the floodgates for SNS (social networking service) applications a little under two years ago. All these recent changes have made Yahoo one of the most open, appealing and developer-friendly platforms around. The question is, does the average internet user care?

Mashable speculates….

Does all this sound a bit like Facebook? It’s definitely a step in that direction; a web portal should be the center of your internet experience, and social networking is becoming a crucial part of it. It seems that Yahoo has decided it’s finally time to leave the old “portal” concept behind and move into uncharted territory. We’ll see how this pans out for them; I’ve heard people say hundreds of times that the average user doesn’t want customization, and that a simple, static web portal is still the way to go if you’re catering to a massive audience. However, things change fast on the internet; it’s sometimes better to be one step ahead than one step behind.