Ben Hammersley recently claimed that Yahoo had become the new Google.
He wrote, “Google, it seems, has . . . been overtaken, . . . not by some new startup of ultra smart MIT alumni or by the gazillions in the Microsoft development budget, but by the deeply unhip and previously discounted Yahoo.”
I, along with Kevin Fox (who happens to be an employee of Google) disagree.
While Yahoo has improved their offerings, his claims that they beat out Google are silly.
His first claim is that Yahoo’s research labs site is better than Google Labs. Take a look at both of them and tell me which one has innovative, useful projects and then tell me which one just talks about themselves. Also, he says you can be in direct contact with the developers, but out of the two, Google Labs has direct e-mail links to the teams working on the projects.
His second anecdotal data point is the respective APIs offered by the two search engines, and for all I know, Yahoo is a winner. I haven’t used either.
His third point is that while Google Maps was cool, adding traffic conditions on Yahoo Maps was way cooler. Poppycock! I can get traffic conditions on the radio or on commuter links, but Yahoo has nothing to match color satellite images of the US.
Regarding web e-mail, he claims Yahoo just increased their quota to 1GB, no problem, to match Gmail’s offering. Hogwash. I just logged in to my account tonight and it’s still at 250MB and has been for months. I also have a blog entry that has over 200 comments and continues to get more, with complaints from people who can’t get to their e-mail because of problems with Yahoo Mail. Meanwhile my Gmail account is at 2135MB and counting.
I’m not trying to bash Yahoo. I have a lot of respect for them and I think they’re getting back in the game with innovations and improvements to existing technology, but to say that they’re now top dog compared to Google is just not true.
I agree with you, i tried using Yahoo API sometime back and was definetly better then Google API. That is the only right quote in the whole article. About Mail service – it’s not Gmail’s storage limit that attracts me, it’s their UserInterface and thier non-obstuctive ( non-flash )ads, not to talk about free POP access!!. Even if Yahoo provides me 3GB with same interface i wouldnt be switching back.
You’re right. One of my biggest complaints about Yahoo Mail was the text ads they inserted into my outgoing e-mail.
I agree. I love Google. Yahoo is still very cluttered in my opinion.
Do you play with Google News at all? I recently have started using the customized news function.
I use Google news and customized it to see how it worked, but I browse from multiple machines so I would have to customize it too many times. I’d prefer it if they were to store the settings so I could have the same customizations anywhere I go.
I still use a Yahoo e-mail account a bit, but Gmail more, but have had a few recent cases of people’s e-mails being bounced from my Google account. I guess little technical issues will happen to anybody, but I hoped that Gmail’s focus is/would be strong functioning before they tack on more and more extra memory, which I rather hope never to use. I mean, I like that a lot of extra is there, but 1000 MB was way more than enough to start with. I have no idea or evidence, but if it is the case that my mail has bounced when they’ve added on memory up to my current 2139 MB (2139 — why not 2000 and stick with even numbers, even if it is 2139, just tell me 2000 …) then they’ve got my priorities skewed, in trying to serve me as their user and customer.
I wonder if Gmail will ever/soon just be normally, publicly accessible, like you just go to gmail.com and sign up, or maybe they want to permanently function with this invitation system …
Yahoo is going to 1GB soon:
http://whatsnew.mail.yahoo.com/
I’ve had a yahoo email account for several years now and never had any real problems with it or the interface. Yahoo has also been my homepage for years – their news feed is consistently the best I’ve found. I use both search engines, as well as a few others; either usually does the job. I’m also a member of a few yahoo groups. I can’t help but feel a certain amount of loyalty to Yahoo; they have served me very well for a long time.
I don’t see how yahoo maps is at all better than google maps. I’d have to agree when you said the text ads via outgoing (if i’m not mistaken, hotmail does this too). All it does is add up to the message size (during a conversation). Honestly, we just have to face it, Google is innovative. Hard to top that quality.
Rich: You make a good point. I used Yahoo Mail for several years and was pleased in general (the annoying ads and the text added to my outgoing mail were my main complaints) and one of my old accounts was just boosted to 1GB, but then again, my Gmail accounts are well over 2GB now.
I wholeheartedly agree that Yahoo has an excellent (probably the best) customizable home page where you can manage news, your calendar, flight prices, stocks, weather, RSS feeds and all sorts of other things. That’s definitely a win for Yahoo.
I still really like Yahoo, I just don’t think they’ve surpassed Google (yet…?)
RSS… which brings to this question: When will Google add RSS feeds to Google News? I’ve been waiting for this for quite some time now. Though with the recent feed reading ability that gmail has (and google ads in rss feeds), I’m thinking that this is a sign that Google is going to use the RSS technology more and more (hopefully).
when it comes to yahoo and services…yahoo is better.
when it comes to email services i think gmail has surpassed yahoo mail…with it’s interface and functionalities i found it great.
there are still changes will be made…gmail still in beta…watch out!
how do I delete yahoo toolbar? thanks
Here are instructions if you’re using Internet Explorer or Firefox.
Google Is Better Than Yahoo.
Yahoo is good but Google Gmail is faster and less spam then Yahoo, using both
GMail still beta after 5yrs. I had a bad experience with gmail and they do not help you to get ur email password if someone hacks your account. They say its beta….
I agree it’s about time Gmail was out of beta.