I find it pretty incredible that the top 3 businesses in such a competitive marketplace have such a different approach to selling their products.  Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live.com peddle more or less the same goods: search ads.  How they get you to that point, however, is very different.

Google decided long ago that the main page of Google.com would feature little more than the search box.  This seems wise, in my opinion.  Google does offer a lot of extranenous features and services, but the bulk of their revenue comes from one thing: search ads.  Why would Google want its users to do anything but to trigger those ads? 

For my screengrab today, Google was featuring Magritte’s birthday.  Classy, and appealing to their user base.

It only took a few years (decades in internet time) for Microsoft to figure out that Google had the right idea, and remove everything else from their site.  This change required (or enabled, depending on your opinion) rebranding MSN to be Live.com (in turn, they improved both their ad matching and ad serving capabilities). 

For my screengrab today, Live.com was featuring London.  I found the page very appealing, and aside from spending extra time on the site not searching, I give Microsoft credit for putting up something with such class:

Then, there is Yahoo.  Now, again and again I remind everyone that I am a diehard Yahoo fan.  I have stuck with them for years and years, and I will stick with them until the bitter end (which, by the looks of things lately might not be that far off).  Yahoo’s site seems to becoming sillier and sillier.

Today’s Yahoo homepage featured a photograph of man stretching to fit his mouth around a hamburger, and his date’s horrified reaction. 

So, here’s what I think.  It isn’t fair to compare these page, and here’s why:

Yahoo isn’t like the other two.  Yahoo is a content site.  I have been saying this for years, and Yahoo’s attempted deal for Google to serve their ads (failed) may be evidence that others are thinking the exact same way.  Yahoo’s value isn’t search.  Their value isn’t serving search ads.  Yahoo’s value is content, page view, readership.  Yahoo needs to refocus on serving effective ads on their content pages.  They should have beat Google to the browser punch, too.  That writing has been on the wall for years and years (think AOL, Prodigy, etc).  Instead of being a good site on the internet, Yahoo had the opportunity to be the “springboard” to the internet for millions of users. 

Now, it may be too late.  I’ll do whatever I can to support you, Yahoo.  But, at some point you are going to have to come to terms with what you are deep inside.  A content site.  With all those geniuses you have on staff, someone’s got to be able to see this and figure out how to monetize it.