New Yahoo! Ad Slams Google for Being Too Bare
Yahoo!'s latest ad criticizes Google for driving users away with its minimalist and bare homepage.
Yahoo! is launching a new, $85 million ad campaign based around the company's still relatively new 'It's You' slogan. The Wall Street Journal carries the first commercial from this campaign and Yahoo! certainly isn't taking any prisoners; this one targets Google and the fact that "you come to this place so you can leave."
The voiceover for the commercial explains a theory people supposedly have about homepages. This theory is that the homepage should get you where you want to go and there should be nothing more to look at than a box and a button.
The voice then goes on to talk about how Yahoo! isn't blank or anonymous, it's all of the things you want to see. Whether it's news, sports, email, Facebook, Twitter, IM or search, Yahoo! isn't just search: "It doesn't hustle you out the door; it's a place that get's to know you, a place that finds things for you."
Yahoo! has definitely come up with a clever way to differentiate itself from the competition and the, "You go there to leave" line is very strong. However, Google has always prided itself on being minimalist and only allowing bare essentials onto its homepage. The company even has a limit on how many words can appear there. Yahoo! is the opposite, preferring to brand itself as a portal. Google could just as easily fire back that Yahoo! is far too crowded and distracts users from what they're there to do.
Check out the ad for yourself on the Wall Street Journal and let us know what you think!
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In other news, Yahoo still doesn't get it.
LMAO.The reason people use Google is BECAUSE it isn't CLUTTERED like YAHOO!
Yahoo! Because the masses are easily distracted.
iGoogle for people who care about that stuff
I stopped using Bing because the webpages were to crowded. Sorry Yahoo but I like the minimalist approach.
Yahoo, give it up. Google will always be bigger than you..
Yahoo! couldn't have it more backwards- this is exactly the reason people are attracted to Google and not Yahoo!. Yahoo! fills your screen with all sorts of crap you don't want to see and never asked for in the first place. It is so obvious and I cannot believe I am reading this! That is the Google success story in a nutshell and they are basically trying to debunk it. Um, how about comparing stock prices right now, Yahoo!??
Ummmm doesn't everyone realize that's WHY people like Google as a search engine?
I don't not use other search engines because I think they have bad search results. I don't use them because their pages take much longer to load.
I love the minimalist approach Google uses. It loads instantly. That's why it's my homepage.
well as a long time fan of google, i have to say that it is the minamilist approach that makes google appealing. you can look at the homepage without being visually assaulted with all those tabs and adds, just type what you want into the search engine and there ya go.
Fine @$$holes at yahoo, we'll slam you right back for being BLOATED.
Or, for people who don't care either way, enter your search text in the browser bar and just get results.
I almost never go to google. Every browser I use these days has a google search bar built right in, who needs to actually go to any search site anymore?
I tried Bing, didn't like it, went back to Google. If there is to be a corporation hell bent on world domination, I'd be glad to see it be Google.
LMAO.The reason people use Google is BECAUSE it isn't CLUTTERED like YAHOO!
You seriously capitalised all the wrong words in that sentence.
Also; Yahoo sucks.
Yahoo is the one who doesn't get it.
Their site is cluttered with unwanted stuff and what's worse, even though they say you can configure the page the way you want to configure it, there is stuff which they do not let you remove from the page.
I much prefer the simple approach that Google uses which is UnCluttered. Any site that I may want to go is in my bookmarks already.
Yahoo just plain Sucks!
it just makes sense. what doesn't yahoo get? faster google page loads just look better.
I like google the way it is, no nonsense, no fuss, ebay used to be pretty good untill they tacked on all the extra crap.
LMAO.The reason people use Google is BECAUSE it isn't CLUTTERED like YAHOO!
you'd think they would have thought of that by now
LMAO.The reason people use Google is BECAUSE it isn't CLUTTERED like YAHOO!
Exactly why i can't use any other search engine. Not because the results suck, but because i can't see the results.
I doubt Google will even take the time to prove this theory wrong. The market forces will continue to do it for them.
im having a hard time deciding which one is the worst advert... the bing advert of this one....
Yahoo isn't actually in the search business, so their position makes a lot of sense (even if their attack on google doesn't). They are really competing with the likes of MSN as a sort of unified content provider (the definition is a bit vague, but I think the MSN comparison gets the idea across). News, games, stocks, email, instant messaging, etc. That's the business Yahoo has been in for years. Ultimately, I think the message is not that Yahoo! is better at search than Google, but that the service Yahoo! provides is entirely different in nature. That is to say: luggage is great for holding your things while you travel, but houses are better for when you want to stay home.
google page takes ~0.1s to load, ~0.2-0.3 with search results
show me anything similar at that speed AND quality, i might try and like it, until then google is my homepage
Who is yahoo anyways?
Yahoo has this all wrong. I want to see what i want to see and thats all. I dont want to see what they want to push out on me. If you want news, go to a news website. Google is a search site and i definitely prefer it to the alternatives with all the additional junk that loads.
The whole damn reason I use Google is because its bare! It means I don't need to spend time waiting for useless information and adverts to load before I'm able to do my search...
Keep it bare Google! We support you!
iGoogle is all I need. It is uncluttered and I can add only what I want to add to my homepage. Email, weather, CNN top stories, calendar, and Oh yeah, NO ADS.
In other news, Yahoo still doesn't get it.
Couldn't of said it better myself.
I guess yahoo thinks people want computers pre-loaded with bloatware, too.
Yeaaah... I go to a SEARCH site to be bombarded with commercials and bullsh*t, and not to find what im actually looking for... Are they really this stupid?
The people posting here must aren't thinking too clearly. Yahoo is Yahoo, Google is Google, and they both aren't going to change. Don't expect Yahoo to give up all it has to downgrade itself to a Google, and don't expect Google to add more things unless they find their market share is going down (well, more than the very small amount it has).
So, both aren't going to throw away their advantages. To me, using Google as a homepage is borderline retarded (I use Excite), because there's nothing on it, and if I want to do a search, I have a Google search on the top right of Opera.
Yahoo is just playing to its strength. It's advertising where it is stronger, and trying to make people believe it's format is better. That's why you create ads. Neither is better, some people prefer each. You try to show your format in the best possible light.
I think them saying Google is a place you go to, to leave, is pretty funny. It's true, but that doesn't make it useless.
With the new changes, I've been using Cuil and Bing anyway. I can say, you don't miss Google when you stop using it. It's not something you really feel pain when you leave.
Yahoo! criticizes Google for being more successful than them. That's what I got from reading that article. For me built-in bookmarks are the way to Facebook/Twitter and other sites, it's the fastest way to get to a page that you want.