WebProNews

Tag: redesigns

  • Will Users Accept Yahoo’s First New Logo In 18 Years?

    Early last month, Yahoo announced that it would be changing its logo, and kicked off thirty days of showing a different design each day. Now, the real new logo has been unveiled, and here it is. It started rolling out last night.

    The New Yahoo Logo

    What do you think of the new Yahoo logo? Improvement or not? Let us know in the comments.

    On the home page, the exclamation point even dances around (we’ll see if that’s permanent or just a celebratory gesture).

    Yahoo logo dancing

    While I personally don’t have a huge problem with it (it’s certainly better than the majority of the logos they’ve been using for the past month), many are less than impressed.

    Yahoo promised the new logo would be “a modern design,” so the company probably isn’t very excited about TechCrunch’s assessment calling it a “GeoCities logo“.

    Yahoo, of course, killed GeoCities about four years ago.

    This is the first time in 18 years Yahoo has updated its logo, so it’s hard to say that some change wasn’t in order. Yahoo has desperately tried to revitalize its brand for years, and has arguably made its biggest mark over the past year since Marissa Mayer has taken over.

    “Our brand, as represented by the logo, has been valued at as much as ~$10 billion dollars,” she says. “So, while it was time for a change, it’s not something we could do lightly.”

    A logo redesign is an important decision for any company, let alone one the size of Yahoo. You know Yahoo even surpassed Google as the top web property in the U.S. in July?

    It turns out that Mayer had a direct hand in the design. She had this to say in a blog post:

    On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator. I think it’s one of the most incredible software packages ever made. I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous 🙂

    So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and our intern Max Ma. We spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday designing the logo from start to finish, and we had a ton of fun weighing every minute detail.

    She notes that they didn’t want to have any straight lines in the logo, because they don’t exist in the human form, and are “extremely rare in nature.” They also wanted letters with thicker and thinner strokes and “scallops” on the ends of the letters to replace the old serif font.

    “Our existing logo felt like the iconic Yahoo yodel. We wanted to preserve that and do something playful with the OO’s,” Mayer says. “We wanted there to be a mathematical consistency to the logo, really pulling it together into one coherent mark.”

    Here’s the blueprint with all the notes they made about the font:

    Yahoo Logo blueprint

    Did you put this much thought into your own company’s logo?

    According to Mayer, 87% of the company’s employees wanted a change in the logo. It will be interesting to see how users react over time. Here are some early reactions:

    Your turn. Tell us what you think.

  • Bing Redesigns Video Search From Ground Up

    Bing just announced a big redesign of its video search feature, which it says has been redesigned from the ground up. Changes include navigational improvements, video overlays, pop-out previews, bigger thumbnails and new filters.

    New Bing Video Search

    “Rather than making you travel to a site to see if a video is the one you’re looking for, we updated our preview mode so now you can simply roll the cursor over the video thumbnail to see a short preview,” Bing’s video search team says in a blog post. “We also expanded the information displayed about a video to speed up your search and now show favicons from the top sites, view counts, descriptions, and bold your search terms in the titles. Additionally, we’ve added a control for our previews so you can adjust the volume level of the preview playback.”

    “Another subtle but powerful feature are the filter improvements,” the team adds. “The resolution filter now takes into account common video sizes such as 720 and 1080. The source filters are also more specific to the segment for which you are searching. You can also sort by date to ensure you’re getting the freshest (or oldest) videos available.”

    With the video overlay, users can move to different videos from the carousel at the bottom of the light box. There’s also a related searches list on the right . The source and number of views are displayed under the videos.

    bing Video overlays

    Bing also recently made improvements to product search. More on that here.

  • Twitter Users Complain About Twitter Making Changes To Twitter

    Twitter began rolling out a new look for the way it displays conversations on Wednesday. The change has come (or is still coming) to the web interface, the Android app and the iOS app.

    Here’s a look:

    According to Business insider, “People are absolutely freaking out about it.”

    I’m not quite getting that impression. The report points to a handful of reporters and industry types complaining, and there are certainly others, but I’m not seeing a huge outburst from the Twitter community. In fact, I’m seeing people say they like the new look too.

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s not hard to find complaints, and there are quite a few, but not at the level one would expect from a major redesign. It’s not like the infamous Netflix redesign from a couple years ago, for example. I don’t think it’s at the level of the recent Yahoo Mail redesign.

    Nevertheless, here are a few of the “freak outs”:

    Every time a major product gets a redesign, there is going to be some level of backlash. Some people just hate change, and sometimes people just have opinions (shocking, right?).

    Perhaps the outburst will be escalated as Twitter continues to roll the new look out, because the roll-out is not complete. I’m personally not even getting it yet. So, maybe there will be a major freak-out after all. My guess is that people will get over it in about a day or so either way.

    Image: Twitter (YouTube)

  • Yahoo Keeps The Redesigns Coming With Mobile Web Changes

    Yahoo announced on Wednesday that it is rolling out a new mobile web interface across many of its properties, including Mail, Finance, Homepage, Search, Messenger and News. Here’s a look:

    Yahoo Mobile interface

    “We’re focused on building products for where our users are, and that includes mobile apps of course, but it also means providing an awesome mobile web experience, regardless of the device you use,” says Juliana Santarelli, Yahoo Senior Product Manager of Mobile & Emerging Products. “Today many of our global users are accessing their web experiences on feature phones.”

    “We wanted to be sure all our users get the best possible experience,” she adds. “So today, you’ll find a refreshed, modernized mobile web experience that’s more consistent with our mobile apps regardless of the level of device you’re using, from smartphones to the most basic feature phone. Our focus is to ensure our sites maximize the available space on your phone’s screen, improve page performance and are available to our users regardless of what device you’re using.”

    This all follows Tuesday’s news that Yahoo is also rolling out redesigns to a bunch of its sites, like Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Movies, Yahoo Music, Yahoo TV, Yahoo omg!, Yahoo Games and Yahoo Weather.

    Image: Yahoo

  • Yahoo Redesigns A Bunch More Of Its Sites

    Yahoo Redesigns A Bunch More Of Its Sites

    Yahoo announced today that it is rolling out a redesign of Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Movies, Yahoo Music, Yahoo TV, Yahoo omg!, Yahoo Games and Yahoo Weather.

    “This is the next step in building a more modern, consistent and personalized Yahoo! following our new homepage design and redesigned Yahoo! News,” the company says.

    It also follows big redesigns for Yahoo Mail and Flickr.

    Personalization seems to be the main theme across the new versions of these sites. On Yahoo Sports, it will make info about your favorite leagues and teams more prominent, and include “premium” content from its staff, as well as from partners like NBC Sports. Yahoo Fantasy has also received an update.

    Yahoo Sports

    “Refreshed Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! TV and Yahoo! omg! provide entertaining, personalized and engaging experiences,” says Mike Kerns, Senior Vice President, Homepage & Vertical Products. “We’ve created an easier and intuitive experience for finding movie showtimes, now you can sort by theater or movie. We’ve also made it simpler to find more entertainment content, including movie trailers, tv episodes and music videos. The viewing experience for videos and photos have never been more beautiful — video screens are now larger and photos are more immersive, high quality and can be seen in full-screen.”

    Yahoo Movies

    New Yahoo Music

    Yahoo TV

    Yahoo OMG

    He adds, “With the new Yahoo! Games, we’ve streamlined the site and made it easier for you to find popular games like ‘Slotomania’ and ‘The Godfather: Five Families’, discover new games like ‘Pirates: Tides of Fortune’, and get to some of your old-time favorites like ‘Gem Swap’ and ‘Dragon Mahjong’ to bring back a little nostalgia. And, we’ve improved tracking of your games history so you can get back to your favorite ones faster.”

    For Yahoo Weather, Yahoo is adding some of the features from its recently launched Weather iOS and Android apps. This includes full-bleed photos from Flickr, showing current local conditions of the time and type of weather alongside actual weather info.

    New Yahoo Weather

    Yahoo has been changing just about everything since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO (even the logo), and shows no signs of letting up. That goes for the non-stop acquisition spree as well. This week, Yahoo acquired yet another company, IQ Engines, to make even more improvements to Flickr.

    Yahoo is also extending its Yahoo Stream ads with the new redesigns. The company writes in a blog post:

    With the refreshed Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! omg! and Yahoo! Games launching today, Yahoo! Stream Ads will now appear across these sites to complement the new content stream format. This is an exciting step forward as we continue to launch more personalized, immersive advertising opportunities that are consistent across Yahoo!, as well as across desktop, tablet and mobile. The Billboard ad format, which offers fun and entertaining interactions like watching movie trailers or purchasing tickets within the ad, will also be available across the redesigned sites. Read more about our redesigned, more personal Yahoo! sites here.

    Yahoo is also introducing Yahoo Stream Ads for Yahoo Mail on desktop and Android.

    Yahoo, last month, became the top web property in the U.S., beating even Google, according to comScore.

    All images: Yahoo

  • Bing Uses Machine Learning To Improve Product Search

    Bing Uses Machine Learning To Improve Product Search

    Bing announced today that it is launching a new product search experience, which utilizes its index of tens of millions of products, along with machine learning, to show products on the main results page, rather than making users go to a dedicated shopping page.

    As you can see, it looks vaguely like Google’s Knowledge Carousel and the style the search engine recently added to local results.

    Bing Product Search

    “For example, if you are in the market for a new camera. Simply enter ‘dslr camera’ and you will see a category snapshot with the top dslr cameras,” Bing explains in a blog post. “You might have heard about a specific Canon model, you click on the <Canon EOS 6D> and you will see our new Carousel so you can quickly browse other related products that might be of interest and then narrow down the selection that best meets your needs. We’re also bringing the power of our industry leading Snapshot technology to expose more of the details you need for a specific product, like specs and reviews, to make a decision without having to click to another page.”

    “If you want to purchase the product, we present you with two easy options,” Bing says. “First, product pricing and availability directly from the merchant themselves will appear right inside search results in what we call Rich Captions. So if Target, for example, has the product you’re looking for, and that link appears in search results, Bing will show you their price and availability information. Another way Bing helps is through new product adswith photos and pricing that provide you the ability to quickly see offers from merchants across the web.”

    The new product search experience will be rolling out over the course of the coming months, so you may still see the old version for a while.

    Image: Bing

  • LinkedIn Launches Redesign For Groups

    LinkedIn Launches Redesign For Groups

    LinkedIn announced today that LinkedIn Groups is getting a big redesign with new customization features. Here’s what it looks like:

    New LinkedIn Groups

    “The new streamlined interface also makes it easier for members to find content and engage in a Group,” says LinkedIn’s Jennifer Bunting. “On LinkedIn, members join Groups to share knowledge and network. Brands like Citi, Staples, and Capital One use Groups to build relationships with these members, drive advocacy, and generate engagement with their content marketing efforts.”

    LinkedIn has put together this slideshow about using Groups:

    “Today there are more than 200 conversations happening each minute across LinkedIn Groups and more than 8,000 Groups created each week,” says LinkedIn’s Daria Axelrod Marmer.

    The new look is rolling out to English-speaking members starting today. Over 2 million groups have already been created.

    LinkedIn also launched new University pages this week.

    Image: LinkedIn

  • Do Users And Businesses Have Legitimate Gripes With Gmail?

    Google is making waves with Gmail a lot these days for a variety of reasons, and this week, users are freaking out about something the company said in a court document regarding email privacy. Combine that with the new compose box that is getting people riled up, and the recently launched tabbed interface, and a lot of people are finding new reasons not to like Gmail.

    Have any of these events influenced your thoughts about Gmail as a user or as a business? Let us know in the comments.

    Privacy

    A 39-page court document (via TheVerge) has Google saying:

    Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient’s [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.”

    On the surface, this may look like Google is saying that Gmail users shouldn’t expect privacy, but this quote that has drawn so much attention is actually in a section about “non-Gmail plaintiffs”.

    But that hasn’t stopped some from running wild with the story. Frequent Google privacy critic Consumer Watchdog, for example, put out a press release under the headline, “Google Tells Court You Cannot Expect Privacy When Sending Messages to Gmail — People Who Care About Privacy Should Not Use Service, Consumer Watchdog Says.”

    Consumer Watchdog says.

    Even The Daily Show managed to get in a jab, saying on its Facebook Page:

    TDS Breaking News: Google: “Gmail users can’t legitimately expect privacy.” Just like Google can’t legitimately expect us to use Google+.

    Even if there is no real issue here, perception is a whole different story. And it probably doesn’t help Google that this also follows a recent marketing campaign from Microsoft designed to create unease with Gmail’s privacy policy, not to mention the whole PRISM thing. People aren’t exactly trusting of big companies when it comes to privacy these days.

    The Compose Box

    But this whole privacy discussion is really only one part of the current backlash against Gmail, and the others are very real things that Google has implemented for better or worse.

    Back in October, Google began testing its new compose box. In March, Google began rolling it out to everyone, though it was still optional. This week, the company announced that it will no longer be optional. Users are going to need to get used to it.

    The problem is that a lot of users aren’t getting used to it. In fact, a lot of users just downright hate it. Personally, I don’t really see the big deal, but people have been quite vocal about it in comments on our coverage of the feature since it rolled out.

    There have been quite a few comments like, “new gmail compose is absolutely terrible” and “Absolutely the worst interface ever.”

    Again, I just don’t see it, but clearly a lot of people agree with these.

    Google has even gone so far as to provide users with the option to make the compose box full screen, but users still aren’t into it.

    New Gmail Compose Box

    “Now that that option is available, we’re saying farewell to the old compose and switching everyone to the new compose over the next few days. The new compose opens drafts as a minimizable window so you can write multiple drafts at once, keep an eye on incoming email, adds support for inline images and much more,” says Google in a Gmail Google+ post.

    A more recent comment, which again, is after the inclusion of the full-screen option, says:

    Everything is hidden and needs more clicks. It reminds me strongly of MS Vista. Sure it had improvements but many things were buried under more clicks and more mouse movement. I hope Google comes to their senses quickly. Or maybe everyone in their management uses tablets for 90% of their work now and they are out of touch with people who use a mouse and keyboard with a “real” computer.

    So frustrating. I can’t remember ever feeling the urge to find an alternative to gmail before but I definitely felt it today. No, I probably won’t switch, but that’s only due to the hassle of it…

    More comments like these continue to roll in even as I write this.

    Finally, the new tabbed interface.

    This one is easily fixable if you don’t like it. You can adjust the settings to basically make your inbox look the way it used to. I haven’t seen quite the amount of online backlash over this as I have over the compose box, and that’s probably why. Most of the people I have talked to about the interface immediately adjusted their settings to revert back to the old style as soon as the new one was thrust upon them. I’m still using the old style on one account and the new one on another (personal/work). I honestly haven’t made up my mind on which I prefer.

    Regardless of what users think about, it does present some new things for businesses to think about in terms of getting their email messages viewed by consumers (yes, consumers who have opted to receive such messages).

    It’s still early, but there is some research out there, and it’s actually not so bad for businesses. The good news is that those who were already engaging with marketing emails are doing so more with the new interface.

    Last week, we looked at research from Return Path, which showed that users who are “routinely engaged” with marketing email are reading a slightly higher percentage of their marketing email now – an increase of 2.11%.

    On the flip side, the study found that read rates have dropped to around 10% for Gmail users who have had a “medium engagement” level with marketing email (which makes up 88% of all Gmail users, according to the firm). Those with the lowest engagement level read far fewer marketing messages dropping from 2% to 0.4%.

    Engagement levels in gmail interface

    Again, this is early research, and we don’t know how many users are actually using the new tabs. It’s still something marketers are going to have to show some level of concern about.

    Reality

    When it comes to redesigns, new features or any other issues with online services, the disgruntled ones are always the most vocal, so regardless of how many complaints there are about any of these things, it’s not necessarily an indication that Gmail is going to lose many users.

    It’s hard to say if any of this will lead to any significant change in webmail market share, but competitor Yahoo is having a hard enough time keeping users happy itself. Perhaps Microsoft does have something to gain.

    Are you concerned about Gmail privacy? Do you like the new compose box? How about the new tabbed interface? Are any of these things making you rethink your Gmail use, or how you conduct your email marketing? Let us know in the comments.

  • Marketers Fear Gmail’s New ‘Promotions’ Tab Will Send Their Messages Into The ‘Depths’ Of Invisibility

    As you may know, Google recently launched a new interface for Gmail, which includes a tabbed categorization system. Among the tabs are: Primary, Social, Promotions and Updates.

    It’s that “Promotions” tab that could pose a problem, and some companies who rely on email marketing are voicing their concerns, and going so far as to send their subscribers instructions to get their messages away from this tab. The question is how well will this work?

    According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, companies like Delta, Gap, Groupon and LivingSocial have been instructing their subscribers to make the necessary adjustments to keep messages in their “Primary” inboxes. For some, this could be a hard sell.

    Marketers are also worried other webmail providers will follow Google’s lead. The report shares the following quote from LivingSocial CMO Barry Judge:

    “We think other email providers will be adopting this as well. We don’t know when and we don’t know who, but we think they will…We clearly just want users to see our emails.”

    The report also shares the text retailer Kate Spade has sent to its subscribers, which says the “new inbox settings may have started filing away your Saturday.com emails into the depths of something called a ‘Promotions’ tab.”

    The depths. That’s just it. This is a tab that users know they can go without looking at, as it it is just filled with people trying to sell them stuff. At least that’s what it’s supposed to be. We’ve seen non-marketing emails, like simple email newsletters filled with real content, appear in this tab as well. These are emails that users opted to subscribe to for said content, and now they’re likely getting ignored in the “depths” of this tab.

    The situation is complicated even more by the fact that Google is putting its own ads in an email-like format in this tab – always at the top, of course. These aren’t actual emails. They just look like emails. Yes, they’re labeled as ads, but they look like marketing emails, and they compete for attention in the Promotions tab, where it’s already hard to get users’ attention.

    There has been a little early research indicating that users who are “routinely engaged” with marketing email are reading a slightly higher percentage of their marketing email now. That’s according to Return Path, but it’s still early to have any truly reliable data on this.

    One thing marketers might find solace in is that users who don’t like the tabbed interface (which includes pretty much everyone I’ve casually spoken to about it) can adjust the settings to make the interface more like the old style (without the tabs). It would be interesting to know how many are really reverting.

  • Gmail Users Who Were Already Engaging With Marketing Emails Are Doing So More With The New Tabbed Interface

    Gmail Users Who Were Already Engaging With Marketing Emails Are Doing So More With The New Tabbed Interface

    Email intelligence firm Return Path has released a new report looking at the early effects Gmail’s new tabbed experience has had on marketers. The company finds that users who are “routinely engaged” with marketing email are reading a slightly higher percentage of their marketing email now – an increase of 2.11%.

    The study also finds that read rates have dropped to around 10% for Gmail users who have had a “medium engagement” level with marketing email (which makes up 88% of all Gmail users, according to the firm). Those with the lowest engagement level read far fewer marketing messages dropping from 2% to 0.4%.

    The new interface was rolled out on July 22nd, and the data was collected a week later.

    Gmail read rate

    Here’s a look at how the rollout impacted specific industries:

    By Industry

    The report also notes that mobile usage could be minimizing the effects of the changes.

    “Clearly it’s too early to make a meaningful pronouncement about Gmail’s Tabs’ true effect on user behavior or email marketing’s effectiveness,” Return Path says in the report. “Although the early indications suggest that most marketers can stop worrying about Gmail crippling their email response rates, there are two opposing forces that may decide how subscribers ultimately react to these changes: novelty and habit.”

    “For many users this was the first time Tabs were part of the Gmail experience, and some may have searched through their messages to see which brands were rerouted,” the firm adds. “They may not be as curious a week or a month later. On the other hand users that want to see at least some of their commercial email on a regular basis must now take an additional step to find it. That’s a habitual activity that develops over time, and as these users start to check the Promotions Tab as part of their regular email review, read rates may climb.”

    You can find the entire report here.

  • Here’s The Second Yahoo Logo Option

    Here’s The Second Yahoo Logo Option

    Yahoo announced this week that it is changing its logo next month, and in the meantime, it will display a different logo on its various properties each day. Here’s what the first one looked like:

    yahoo logo

    Now, we get a look at the second option:

    Yahoo logo

    Here’s a look at what it looks like on some of Yahoo’s properties:

    Yahoo Logo

    Yahoo Sports new logo

    Yahoo finance logo

    Yahoo News

    Here Yahoo runs through a bunch of possible options for the next logo really quickly:

    Which one do you like? What do you think of today’s version?

  • Here’s What The New Yahoo Logo Could Look Like. What Do You Think?

    There’s been a whole lot of change going on at Yahoo, so why should that stop at the company’s logo? Yahoo will be launching a new logo next month, and in the meantime, will display an option each day. Above is the first one. What do you think?

    Yahoo Chief Marketing Officeer Kathy Savitt writes on the company blog:

    The new logo will be a modern redesign that’s more reflective of our reimagined design and new experiences. To get everyone warmed up, we are kicking off 30 days of change. Beginning now, we will display a variation of the logo on our homepage and throughout our network in the U.S. for the next month. It’s our way of having some fun while honoring the legacy of our present logo.

    We also want to preserve the character that is unique to Yahoo! — fun, vibrant, and welcoming — so we’ll be keeping the color purple, our iconic exclamation point and of course the famous yodel. After all, some things never go out of style.

    Yahoo shows off a bunch of other options in this video, so we’re assuming that the final decision will come down to one of these:

    Which one do you like the best? Should they even change it at all?

  • Google Launches New Zagat (Desktop, Android, iOS)

    Google announced the launch of a new Zagat experience across the website and Android and iOS apps. Included is free access to its “trusted” Zagat ratings and reviews without registration (for the first time).

    Here’s a look:

    New Zagat

    New Zagat - mobile

    The new experience includes news and video content from Zagat editors, as well as curated lists, search and map-based browsing.

    “These days, the challenge in deciding where to go is not about about a lack of information or user reviews, but finding accurate information and trusted opinions so you can quickly make informed decisions,” says Gannon Hall, Group Product Manager and Head of Zagat. “Through our digital products—and the Google products you use every day like the new Google Maps for Mobile—you can rely on Zagat’s curated lists and summary reviews to cut through the clutter so you can find the perfect spot.”

    “The new Zagat covers restaurants and nightlife in nine cities, and over the coming months we plan to expand to 50 U.S. and international destinations and cover shopping, hotels and other places of interest,” says Hall. “We know that many of you are eager to have continued access to our content in these markets, so in advance of this expansion, we’ll soon make our existing ratings and reviews available on Zagat.com.”

    Last week, news came out that Google is shutting down the Google+ Local app for iOS. The company pointed users to the new Google Maps. Now, users can consider the new Zagat app as well for their local search needs.

  • Yandex Releases Its New ‘Islands’ Search Results In Beta

    Yandex recently announced its new search results concept – interactive snippets called “Islands”. This is part of a redesigned search results page. We last reported on it here.

    Today, the company announced the release of Islands in beta. The feature is now available to users in Russia, Ukraine and Turkey.

    “In May we announced the concept of Islands, which allows people to start using web sites right within the search results,” said Yandex’s head of Islands, Taras Sharov. “It’s a concept in which we provide the platform, and site owners fill it with content. Today we’re taking the next step and releasing the beta version of Islands with the first interactive answers. We’ll gradually increase their number, adding only those that are genuinely useful.”

    Yandex Islands

    The interface changes based on the search query, Yandex explains. “It presents answers in the form of blocks, which can accommodate various kinds of information – from texts to videos, pictures, and interactive forms. For user convenience, similar blocks are grouped together and the navigation menu only shows those Yandex services that are relevant to the current query.”

    The feature appears on web, image and video search. Other Yandex services will be added over time.

    If you’re a webmaster, and you’re interested in taking advantage of the interactive interface that Islands offer users, you can develop your own island here.

  • New Google Maps Hits iPhone, iPad

    Back at Google I/O, Google revealed it’s big new Google Maps redesign. Last week, the company announced the new look and features for Android, and now has launched them for iOS.

    The update includes enhanced search and navigation features, and a tablet-specific Maps experience for iPad users (the Android release also has a Tablet-dedicated version).

    Enhanced Search

    “A dedicated tablet design brings all the features of Google Maps, including Street View, to a larger screen, which makes exploring the world from the comfort of your living room engaging and fun,” says Google Maps director Daniel Graf. “Go from the Colosseum to your local pizza joint in just a few taps.”

    New Maps on iPad

    New Maps on iPad

    If you’re the pizza joint owner, by the way (or any other business owner), you should probably look into finding a Google Trusted Photographer to get your imagery involved.

    Business Photos

    “When you’re stuck in traffic and wondering what the holdup is, use Google Maps on your iPhone to get live incident reports on road closures, construction, accidents, and more,” says Graf. “And as always, you’ve got voice guided, turn-by-turn navigation, and live traffic conditions right on the map. If you prefer public transportation, Google Maps has schedule information for more than one million public transit stops around the world.”

    The app comes with turn-by-turn directions and voice-guided navigation for over 330,000 miles of trails, baths and bike lanes for bicyclists.

    It also features the new Explore feature, which highlights places to eat, drink, shop, etc. that are nearby.

    Explore google maps

    Also included is the new 5.0 star rating system, Zagat badges, and curated lists. For more details on all of these features, see our coverage of last week’s Android launch.

    iPad Zagat rating

    The new app is currently available in the App Store.

  • Yahoo Mail Still Frustrates Users A Month After Switch

    Last month, Yahoo finally killed Yahoo Mail Classic, about six months after launching a major redesign for Yahoo Mail. During most of the first half of the year, users still had the option to use the old version, but starting the week of June 3rd, older versions went away, forcing users to use the redesigned experience.

    No big deal right? Companies redesign their products all the time. Usually it’s for the better, and the inevitable complaints from users who don’t like change die down after a short time. Well, this time, the complaints have been fast and steady, and are still going strong over a month after Yahoo made the final switch. A lot of users really just don’t seem to be happy.

    Do you use Yahoo Mail? Do you like or dislike the new version? Do you miss Yahoo Mail Classic? Let us know in the comments.

    It was quite evident right when Yahoo pulled the plug on Yahoo Mail Classic that some were pretty displeased. We even felt it necessary to write about this back then because there were just so many complaints. An article about this we ran in the WebProNews newsletter still continues to get search traffic on a daily basis, accompanied by more and and more complaints in the comments.

    Let’s look at a few examples:

    “I loved it now I hate it. I cannot do any of the things I did before the middle of June 2013. When I reply I cannot use the spell ck the bold etc. I cannot edit something to forward it as I could before or just send a reply without all the previous conversations. If it does not get back to normal or better I will be forced to get rid of it which I hate as all my friends and companies have my e mail address. Who ever was the brain that changed something that was working well needs to be fired. Next time ask people if they would like the change. I guess because it is free one cannot complain so my next step is to move on. I hope Yahoo gets the message. AOL seems to be the best next default mail. Also it seems to be one long e mail of all the sent and resent things so if you want to keep some of it guess what you have to keep all of it pics etc.”

    …

    “I think the new Yahoo webmail is atrocious, it’s a crime to force people to use such a piece of junk. It’s slow, ignores clicks, seems to repeat clicks and delete items you were expecting to delete. In terms of design, it’s awful. The size of emails is no longer on the main list, so you can’t defer opening large emails until later. You cannot adjust the size of columns. The folder list rolls off when you scroll the email list. You cannot easily delete multiple emails from the main list at once — you have to go one by one…

    …

    “I’ve been having problems with my Yahoo e-mail ever since I switched over from classic. The biggest problem is that the e-mails don’t load correctly when I click on them, leaving a blank screen, and requiring me to close the message, and click on it again, and again, and again; in order to get the message to load. Often, after multiple attempts, I have to refresh the whole page and start over just to finally get the message to load.”

    “Also, though there is a supposed procedure available for users to opt-out of receiving ads; when I tried to opt-out of all advertising, it did not work correctly, and gave me a message something like: You have successfully opted out of receiving ads from 84 providers, but the process failed with these 16 companies”

    “The same thing happened with the Ad Partners opt-out… And so, even though I took the time to opt-out, I am still bombarded with annoying ads; and further, I don’t know what content in my e-mails they are scanning, but the ads are totally irrelevant to me, dating services (I’m married), credit scores (not interested), criminal background checks (I’m not hiring at this time), English lessons (LOL), the list of irrelevant ads goes on and on.”

    “Yet even though I receive literally hundreds of e-mails per day from my horse racing website (clockerscorner.com), I have not seen one single horse racing related ad, EVER; which leads me to believe that in fact, Yahoo isn’t attempting to send me ads which are relevant to me (although it sounds good), but instead, Yahoo is just bombarding me with ads from whichever advertisers they have available at the time.”

    “For all of the above reasons, I think the time has come to abandon my Yahoo account. The problem is that I have been using it for about nine years, and I have messages being forwarded to that account from other accounts, so let’s just say it won’t be easy to migrate away from Yahoo, which I suspect is what they are counting on, that they have 280 million users’ proverbial “nuts” in a vise.”

    That’s just three comments with close to two hundred upvotes among them. There are hundreds more where those came from if you want to read them.

    Even a simple Twitter search for “Yahoo Mail” returns a seemingly endless amount of people experiencing issues with the service or just complaining about it in general. Here are a few just from the past hour. Again, this is a month after Yahoo Mail Classic was shut down, and there are plenty more.

    Suffice it to say, the Yahoo Mail Twitter account has been busy with replies. So has the Yahoo Customer Care Twitter account that the Yahoo Mail account has been referring people to. So has the Yahoo Mail Support team at the Yahoo Help Community where the Yahoo Customer Care Twitter account has been referring people.

    Now to be fair, there are probably a substantial number of users who are fine with the changes. Yahoo Mail has a ton of users, and content users of any product tend to be less vocal about their experiences than disgruntled users. This is perhaps a sad reality, but it is the truth. That said, this is a lot of complaining to still be occurring over a month after a product’s final roll-out – a product, let’s remember, that has actually been available since December.

    Even the guy who ran Yahoo Mail since 2009 left the company (he now works at Disney), and rumor has it that his departure was not amicable, and that he left because he didn’t see eye-to-eye with CEO Marissa Mayer on her decision to overhaul Yahoo Mail.

    And we haven’t even touched on Yahoo’s plan to give away inactive account IDs and email addresses, which at least one noted security expert has called “moronic”. That situation has its own set of opponents.

    On the positive side, Yahoo did recently add some new Flickr integration to Yahoo Mail.

    Is the new Yahoo Mail an improvement over the old one? For any of you who are actually happy with the product, here’s your chance to speak up and counter the naysayers. Let us know in the comments.

  • Google Makes Navigation Changes To Webmaster Tools

    Google has launched a new navigation design for Webmaster Tools in an effort to make frequently used features easier to access.

    The design organizes features into groups that match “the stages of search,” as Google puts it. These are: Crawl, Google Index, Search Traffic and Search Appearance.

    Crawl shows you info about how Google discovers and crawls your content, including crawl stats, crawl errors, URLs that are blocked from crawling, sitemaps, URL parameters and the Fetch as Google feature.

    Google Index shows how many pages you have in Google’s index, and lets you monitor the overall indexed counts for your site and see what keywords Google has found on your pages. From here, you can also request to remove URLs from search results.

    Search Traffic lets you check how your pages are doing in search results, how people find your site, and links to your site. Here, you can also see a sample of pages from your site that have incoming links from other internal pages.

    Finally, Search Appearance includes the Structured Data dashboard, Data highlighter, Sitelinks and HTML improvements.

    Admin tasks (at the account level) are found under the gear icon in the corner. This includes things like Webmaster Tools Preferences, Site Settings, Change of Address, Google Analytics Property, Users & Site Owners, Verification Details and Associates.

    “This is the list of items as visible to site owners, ‘full’ or restricted’ users will see a subset of these options,” says Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Mariya Moeva. “For example, if you’re a “restricted” user for a site, the “Users & Site Owners” menu item will not appear.”

    There’s also a new Search Appearance pop-up, which shows how your site may appear in search, and gives more info about the content or structure changes that could influence each element. This pop-up is accessible via the question mark icon.

  • Yahoo News Gets A Redesign To Go With New Homepage

    Yahoo continues to push out redesigns of its major properties. In recent months, we’ve seen the company release new versions of its homepage, search results page and Yahoo Mail Now, it’s Yahoo News’ turn.

    “Just like with the new Yahoo! homepage we announced in February, Yahoo! is continuing to personalize the user experience with the launch of a newly designed Yahoo! News,” a Yahoo spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Beginning today, users will enjoy a redesigned page that delivers a more engaging and personalized experience. The new site makes it easier and faster to discover and share the news you care about most. ”

    Here’s what it looks like.

    Yahoo News Redesign

    Not too different than the new homepage.

    New, features, as outlined in an email from the company are as follows:

    • Streamlined New Site: Redesigned site that puts the news users care about front and center, and provides a more modern, intuitive and personalized experience, consistent with the new Yahoo.com.
    • Easy Navigation: Easier navigation to premium content like Yahoo! News exclusives from our editorial team and content from our partner ABC News.
    • Content Stream: Our intelligent content stream is now available on the new Yahoo! News.
    • Cross Screen: An improved design when users visit Yahoo! News on iOS devices, and soon on Android devices.
    • Fast: Articles now load faster than before.
    • Personalized: A personalized experience that gets smarter the more you use Yahoo!.

    The redesign is rolling out to US users this morning.

  • Google Groups Gets An Update, Proving Google Still Cares

    Google announced today that it is retiring the old Google Groups interface, and is making the new one available to everyone. The company has been busy updating the product over the past year, and now all users can experience the fruits of the company’s labor.

    “One of the recently improved features is the ability to create an inbox that allows you to collaboratively share, distribute and track responsibilities with others,” says Google Groups product manager Ryan Falor. “Imagine you and a few co-workers are organizing an event for your global team and want a single email address to coordinate with vendors, attendees, and speakers. Members of the group can work together to manage email, assign items to each other, and mark items resolved. This can be a great feature for teams seeking a really simple way to get things done without sharing passwords or losing track.”

    “Additionally, there are several new moderation tools to make managing your forum easier and faster,” adds Falor. “For example, you can now use canned responses in forums and use streamlined options to make moderating forum posts easier. And if you are on the go, you can browse and moderate your groups with our mobile website.”

    Google Groups

    In a help center article, Google provides how tos for managing groups, participating in groups, and creating groups, as well as policies on abuse and terms of service.

    Google Groups has been around for many years, and is not a product that Google makes announcements about very often. Users will no doubt be happy to see that Google still cares about the product, considering the coming shut-down of Google Reader, another popular product that Google rarely added features to.

  • New Myspace Launches Out Of Beta, Comes With iOS App

    Myspace announced today that it is bringing its recently redesigned service out of beta, as well as launching a new mobile app for iOS.

    If you haven’t checked out the desktop redesign yet, you can see Josh Wolford’s extensive walkthrough here.

    “The magic of Myspace has always been at the intersection of creative expression, community, promotion, and discovery,” said Myspace CEO Tim Vanderhook. “Myspace aims to power a new ecosystem catering directly to the creative community, enabling artists to manage their digital presence, build an audience, upload and distribute their content, and learn from data all on a single platform.”

    A new feature has been added as the result of feedback the company received during the beta period. That’s a tool that lets users create and share animated GIFs “as simply and intuitively” as if they were taking and posting pictures.

    The mobile app has a “My Radio” feature that lets you create and program your own radio stations, with unlimited free streaming.

    If you don’t use iOS, and you still want to experience Myspace on your mobile device, there’s also a mobile-optimized version of the site.

  • A Lot Of People Seem To Have A Problem With The New Yahoo Mail

    Yahoo Mail Classic is now dead. Yahoo Mail users, as of Monday, no longer have the option of using the old version, and must instead use the new version, which Yahoo reminds them, serves ads based on the content of their emails, much like Google’s Gmail has always done. As one might imagine, a lot of users are less than thrilled about this.

    What do you think of the new Yahoo Mail? Let us know in the comments.

    “Beginning the week of June 3, 2013, older versions of Yahoo! Mail (including Yahoo! Mail Classic) will no longer be available,” wrote Yahoo in its help center fairwell (via TechCrunch). “After that, you can access your Yahoo! Mail only if you upgrade to the new version. You should have received an email from Yahoo! letting you know that your account required an upgrade.”

    Yahoo noted that when you upgrade, you are accepting its Communications Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which includes the acceptance of “automated content scanning and analyzing of your communications content, which Yahoo! uses to deliver product features, relevant advertising, and abuse protection.”

    “If you prefer to opt out of interest-based and contextual-based advertising resulting from your scanned and analyzed communications content, you can change your settings at any time using our Ad Interest Manager,” Yahoo said.

    So, it’s even letting you opt out of ads, but that doesn’t mean they won’t scan your mail. You still have to accept Yahoo’s terms.

    Those who don’t want to use the new Yahoo Mail were directed to download their mail using IMAP or close their account.

    Yahoo’s mention of scanning email to serve ads comes as search partner Microsoft has been campaigning against Google for doing just that, despite the fact that Google has always done this, and has always been quite clear about it.

    To many people this really isn’t a big deal. Gmail hasn’t had any shortage of users, and it’s not as though humans are reading users’ email to try and determine which ads to show. It’s all automated. Those who are concerned about this practice, however, could play right into Microsoft’s hands.

    Suddenly the timing of Microsoft’s campaign seems a lot better from a marketing standpoint. It seemed odd that Microsoft would attack Google suddenly for something it had been doing for nearly a decade and made not efforts to hide. But now we have the previously announced Yahoo Mail redesign, which engages in similar practices as Google, being forced on users. Could Microsoft users have made enough Yahoo users uneasy about this practice in general to get some of them to switch over to its own Outlook.com (the focal point of that particular “Scroogled” campaign)?

    As Declan McCullagh at CNET points out, Yahoo actually adopted the policy that lets it scan emails and serve ads back in 2011. He writes:

    It’s not clear why Yahoo felt the need to remind existing users of language in its 2011 terms of service. One possibility, though, is an effort to head off privacy lawsuits brought by class action lawyers hoping for a million-dollar jackpot. (If there’s ever any litigation, defense counsel would surely prefer to rely on informed consent rather than implied consent.)

    It’s not merely a theoretical possibility: Google was sued in 2011 by a Massachusetts AOL user who sent e-mail to a Gmail account and then claimed her privacy was invaded. Near-identical lawsuits were filed in Marin County, Calif., (PDF) in June 2012, British Columbia (PDF) in October 2012, and Florida (PDF) in November 2012. On April 29, two college students filed yet another suit (PDF) seeking class action status in San Jose, Calif.

    The shuttering of Yahoo Mail Classic also comes on the heels of a separate Yahoo Mail privacy-related story. Last week, a BT made some headlines when it said it would no longer make Yahoo Mail the default email service for its six million customers because of concerns that accounts are vulnerable to getting hacked.

    Gerry Smith at The Huffington Post writes, “The shift of BT’s 6 million customers to another email service represents just a small fraction of Yahoo’s overall email customer base of about 280 million people worldwide. But the loss of clients could be a troubling sign for a company that relies heavily on maintaining its email users to generate advertising revenue. Yahoo is now the third-largest email provider after Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com.”

    Meanwhile, the top dog, Gmail, continues to make efforts to stay ahead of the competitive curve. Last week, Google announced the launch of the new inbox for Gmail, which introduces a new tabbed organization interface.

    Privacy concerns aren’t the only thing bothering users, however. Business Insider conducted a survey, finding that 57% of users are unhappy with the new Yahoo Mail. Nicholas Carlson lists a few of the specific complaints users shared:

    “The mail message frame is not fixed. If you read a new message, and scroll down to the bottom and decide you don’t want to keep it, you can no longer access the delete button. Yes, obviously you can just close the email and then choose it again and delete, but that is a total waste of time and key strokes.”

    “Yahoo disappears emails sent between legitimate and active Yahoo accounts.”

    “I used Yahoo mail as a central box for most of my domain emails. After switching a couple of weeks ago and sending 30 test mails over three days to make sure it was all working, 6 never arrived. I even have specific filters set-up within Yahoo mail to make sure certain mails do not get put in the trash or spam by mistake.”

    “It’s very laggy, and that pause of a second or two between commands makes it extremely frustrating.”

    “The new version of Yahoo mail makes all my messages older than a week or so unreadable. I get “Error 45″ and the messages fail to load. There are numerous reports about this on the net; so far Yahoo hasn’t managed to fix it. So, I have to launch the classic version of Yahoo mail just to read old messages. Fail.”

    “Right after the switch I was hacked and my contacts all 500 plus were gone without a trace.”

    We’ve seen further complaints in the comments of our own coverage.

    Users have had since December to get accustomed to the new Yahoo Mail. More on the redesign here.

    Yahoo has been engaging in a lot of redesigns across its various properties. This week, Yahoo also rolled out a new look for its search results pages to go with its recently redesigned homepage. A big Flickr redesign was also recently launched.

    Is Yahoo moving in the right direction with Mail? How about as a company in general? Share your thoughts in the comments.