Updated: February 28, 2019
While it has been known for months, Yahoo! today unveiled the beta version of its new homepage. The most notable change is the left column, which in the past has been generic links to news, sports, travel, etc.
But now, a new customizable menu appears that effectively turns the left side into a RSS reader or “dashboard”. As users scroll over each widget, a smaller window will appear displaying the site’s content.
Users will now be able to add widgets or applications; basically any third-party site with RSS capability but Yahoo has created a wide-range of widgets for this launch. They will also recommend widgets to users based on their browsing and click-stream behavior.
Yahoo! also plans to conduct random testing to integrate search results pages into this same design. Widgets in the left column will effectively be search filters – users will be able to filter their search to YouTube or videos only for example. However, it’s all being selectively tested right now so it’s unclear when it will be available to the public at-large.
The new homepage will also be available as a mobile application (i.e. Blackberry, IPhone) fairly soon.
See this Search Engine Land article for more examples of Yahoo’s new page…and it’s online now.
It looks pretty neat, better functionality than the old Yahoo! page. It might serve as a good place to organize online activities into one place, kind of like a news aggregator but all inclusive.