Now How Much Would You Pay? (For Yahoo!) 116
LHOOQtius_ov_Borg writes: "A CNet article discusses Yahoo! considering more subscription-fee based premium services. The article points out that other sites, such as TheStreet.Com, have not had success with this. It also mentions that Yahoo has stated that less than 10% of their current revenue comes from 'pure play' Internet companies and 'financially questionable' advertisers.'" Added to which, ABetterRoss writes, "Submitting to some Yahoo categories is no longer free. from the FAQ: "In our ongoing effort to 1) build a useful, comprehensive Web directory and 2) address the needs of people submitting sites to the directory, we have expanded our fee-based Business Express program to cover all submissions to our main commercial categories: 'Business and Economy/Business to Business' and 'Business and Economy/Shopping and Services.'"
I'd pay (Score:2)
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Re:Not Much (Score:1)
Yeah, and if you've got a site listed there and you change your address, you can't get them to correct it for love nor money. After two years of trying, I finally just put up a forwarding page at the old site with a snide message about Yahoo's lack of currency. Feh.
Re:Google? (Score:1)
and yahoo mail is by far the best web-based free email available.
People like to bash yahoo because it is the big dog, but I suspect that we'll have yahoo to beat around for quite a while longer...
Why can't they.... (Score:1)
If you have a product I can touch -- get cheaper online than down the road at the local mall -- and not bend over for S & H -- then you will get my money....Try charging me $19.95 a month for 1's and 0's that I can get somewhere else for free...Or try charging $50 bucks for a stripped down Debian (free) distribution (corel)..and wonder why the piles of money are not showing up...I laugh.
sog
Re:Google? (Score:2)
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quick question (Score:1)
but if it intends on being a primarily search engine, there lies a problem: yahoo uses google's engine. can't you just go to google.com, and make the same search (minus the banners) for free?
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Re:Why come? (Score:2)
It's like anything in the world that has the gall to charge money for a service is evil in Slashdot-land. How dare you try to make money on the internet. For shame..
Re:Good plan... (Score:5)
Yup, why go to a plumbing store when you can go to a pipe store, a T-fitting store, a faucet store, etc.? Face it, aggregation, whether products or information, can be extremely useful. Aggregation is done by "middlemen," and there are useful middlemen, and useless middlemen. As a matter of fact, in the "real world" the more efficent middlemen (e.g. WalMart) are getting increasingly powerful--they are hardly being "gotten rid of"--by their efficiencies in aggregating products and services in a convenient and useful way.
Another example: TV networks (cable or broadcast) aggregate programs from a variety of producers; a minority of programs are actually produced in-house. They run ads and use the proceeds to buy those programs. Some channels (e.g. HBO) charge instead; you can choose not to pay, and still get what the other channels provide. Viacom, for instance, owns both subscriber- and ad-supported channels. I don't see them all of a sudden deciding to make MTV a pay channel, do you?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but TNSTAAFL. (There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.) Aggregation has value, but it also has costs. The latter are going to get passed to you one way (advertising) or another (direct charges). If you don't find that service worth the price, go without or create your own.
Re:Isn't this the US of A? (Score:1)
What about television stations? Granted it's a little different, but it's a fine example.
Re:so? (Score:1)
lamers (Score:1)
like archive of advertisements and less people go
there therefor less revenue from the ads and so
it goes!
Step forward, two back... go figure.
Yahoo is more than a directory to me (Score:1)
I'd pay about... (Score:1)
Walmart? (Score:2)
Anyway, the point I wanted to make was, yeah, middlement are important, but how much cost is there for an Internet middleman? Not much. Fundamentally, I think free sites can end up being just as good, because most users are willing to spend a second or two contributing back to the value of the site. Take Slashdot. Slashdot acts as a middleman for news, but most of the value is added by posters and moderators, not by those who post the articles.
Re:I really, really want to pay!!! (Score:2)
Re:For Yahoo? (Score:1)
Well back in 1995 many search engines thought they were going to get by on subscription services. It didn't work so they switched to banner ads. Banner ads not working and switching subscription services? I dunno.
On the other hand, services like that Yahoo! offers a mailbox space upgrade to 25Mb for $15 a year are okay.
Domains are cheap, make a hole... (Score:1)
Re:Use the Open Directory Project instead (Score:1)
It was a great idea, but they blew it.
In what ways?
Large parts of the directory sucks badly, and it is not going to improve.
Why not?--
Robin Green
ODP editall "greenrd"
Re:you're kidding, right? (Score:1)
It's quite normal nowadays for sites to take weeks to be reviewed - we don't have enough active editors in some areas.
The category I was trying to submit to said it needed an editor. I submitted an application and was rejected within an hour...twice.
We don't take just anyone. For instance, you have to have good spelling and grammar, you have to take due care in filling out the form, and you have to demonstrate some sort of familiarity with the subject matter.
Our metas (editor application reviewers) are hand-picked from the ranks of the long-serving editors, so they know what editing's about and they're not stupid. Since the meta has never met you, think about it - it is highly unlikely that they rejected you out of malice. Probably there was something wrong with your application.
What was the category, by the way, and what did you put on your application form (roughly)?
--
Robin Green
ODP editall "greenrd"
Re:Me, Personally? (Score:1)
Disclaimer: I work in a very small company -- only a few people. I'm not expressing a capitalistic viewpoint, but a realistic one: don't judge a user of software by whether they make money from using it.
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Re:Great... (Score:1)
too much competition (Score:2)
Re:Submission Scam (Score:2)
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=coffee+sho
C'mon starbucks, I'll let you have it for a nominal fee. Forget a catchy domain name. Think of how many people type in "coffee shops" at yahoo.
You forgot the "priceless" line (Score:1)
Just the start (Score:1)
Submission Scam (Score:1)
I could understand an initial fee for listing a site, or even a recurring fee, but paying to submit a site feels like a bit of a set up to me.
Scott
EventNation.com [eventnation.com] - A site that you won't see on Yahoo!
So i't's started, has it (Score:1)
You cant give shit away for free, and expect to make money with it
Re:Of course... (Score:1)
I can't help with your daddy (and somehow I get the distinct impression you're not really a kid).
Re:Great... (Score:1)
More choices are better choices. I'm a big google fan and don't actually use Yahoo, except for Backgammon and Hearts, but i'd be saddened if one day all the search engines died off and all that was left standing was google.
I would pay, if was cheap. (Score:1)
Yes, actually. (Score:1)
Re:Very important, please read!!! (Score:1)
I don't think a parent should let their child go out on a date with some guy (of any age) sight unseen. The parents should know him pretty well first.
As a side note, I think this is the fastest I've ever seen karma drop.
Re:Yahoo today... Slashdot - 10 years later (Score:2)
Could anyone ever imagine that we would come into this? I was here when Yahoo! came up. I saw it growing from the half-hackers site into the commercial mastodon of today. And many things look dangerously similar to Slashdot's evolution.
Rob if you don't wanna ever dream about this, think always ten times before accepting a million dollar bargain. Well, anyway, it's up to you to decide what you would like most...
Re:Great... (Score:1)
Nada (Score:1)
People should be aware that they now use redirection scripts for every link in their directory - e.g. this page [yahoo.com]) - they can (and probably do) associate everything you click on with your "My Yahoo!" id.
Now would be a good time to switch to dmoz.org [dmoz.org].
Will /. do the same soon? (Score:2)
Everybody's tapped out... (Score:2)
Yahoo's nice and the question is worth asking what people will pay and for what. I do not believe that Yahoo delivers a value-added component to the content and services it hosts. I have 6 ways to Sunday to obtain info Yahoo posts.
Yahoo is convenient, reliable and trustworthy source but it is not unique, compelling and irreplacable.
Let's see, rent, car, toys, boat, utils, communications, and on top of that Yahoo? rent? I don't think so.
-r
I guess they need money (Score:1)
Perhaps Yahoo is just trying to generate more revenue to pay for all the television spots they've been buying.
Foundation needs Fixing (Score:1)
Re:Submission Scam (Score:1)
Friends don't let friends pay to get listed on Yahoo!
page load times (Score:1)
Dmoz.org [dmoz.org] is for brosing directories...
I refuse to wait up to 8 seconds for the fricken' front page. that's not reasonable. At least, not in light of cable network access..
This space reserved for a reservation message
Re:Yahoo is more than a directory to me (Score:1)
Face it, the vast majority of the revenue generated on the 'net for companies that don't actually sell anything is from advertisers paying for banner ad click-thrus. More and more people have started to realize that it's easy ignore or block the banners, so web sites that get most of their income this way are looking for alternatives. Whoever thinks of a way for a web site that doesn't actually sell a product or service to make money without banner ads is going to be rich.
Re:Google? (Score:1)
This isn't THAT ridiculous... (Score:1)
Everyone can be in the "white pages" (the standard list of indexed pages) but if you pay a little extra, then your buisness is more likely to be noticed first by someone searching for services....
Re:Isn't this the US of A? (Score:3)
Re:Why come? (Score:1)
It's that the vast majority of people have a hard time paying for something that is readily available for free elsewhere. That's why people trade MP3s instead of buying new CDs (debatable, yes, but it happens) use free operating systems, and why people will flock away from something free if it starts charging.
Making money on the internet is just fine and dandy. I'm all about capitalism. But don't be incredibly shocked folks don't come in droves to use your service that you charge for if someone else has the same service for free. You have the right to TRY and make money in a capitalist society but, if you have a bad business model, you're not earning anything but a swift Chapter 11 in the rear.
That's what's so great about the internet. You have to offer something unique and interesting that DRIVES the consumer to pay for it, or you're not gonna be around long. So far, here's what makes money: pr0n, advertising, e-commerce sites that sell software or *gasp* real physical items, dating services/locator services (helping people meet/find people), and uhh....that's about it. If you can think of anything that doesn't fall into those categories that is doing well financially, I'll buy you a steak.
This will become a continuing problem. (Score:5)
First of all, we have the issue of free service. Everyone who browses the internet expects to do so for free or for a single low flat rate for their isp. They have come to expect this, and I doubt the internet would have taken off if they were charged for every website they wanted to view. I don't want to pay for my information.
To offer this information, it will cost somebody at least something. At the lower end, the isp of the provider can provide a low volume website, but the cost of providing the information will increase with its popularity and size. Information wants to be free, but not for those who provide it.
There has to be a constant, scalable source of revenue to cover the cost of providing the information or service. There are two major possibilities here. Sell the eyeballs of your viewers, or charge the viewers to view the information.
Advertising on the internet might work or it might not. There's a catch 22 in play here. Until the massive bulk of consumers use the internet, ads won't be as lucrative a source of revenue as advertising on the radio or TV are since a lot more people spend a lot more time watching TV then they do on the internet. And even those who DO spend a lot of time on the internet do so engaged in activities that do not subject them to a steady stream of advertising.
The biggest problem with advertising is the fact that while more and more of the people in the world are going online, the original core group of users were of a slightly different breed. The type, for all practical purposes, who don't pay much attention to ads, and spend as much time as possible trying to avoid having to view them at all (Junkbuster and the like come into play here).
On the internet advertising is also subjected to a recursive downward spiral where you end up advertising pages for the sole purpose of selling advertising. When you watch a commercial on TV, they're usually selling a meatspace product. They're not trying to sell you on another service for the sole purpose of throwing advertising on you. The obvious exception to this is when they advertise previews to upcoming shows, but self promotion is always a valid exception. Most TV networks don't make a point of advertising shows on other networks.
On the internet, I might run a website that gains 100% of its revenue from advertising. How will I bring users to my website? I might sell an ad on yahoo since I know there's a big potential audience there. Yahoo of course, gains most, if not all, of their revenue from advertising (at least until now
What this means is, E-commerce is essential for the survival of the internet as it is currently constructed. However, what if I want to provide information to the world at large and not have to pester my viewers with ads, but at the same time, not charge them any money?
This brings up a second point. Information that I serve is mine. I provide it to the world, but *I* want to be the one serving it so I get credit for it. AT least, this is the general perception. However, I can't afford any more than a dsl line without some type of revenue stream. Bandwidth gets cheaper the closer to the backbone you get, but you have to be able to purchase a LOT of bandwidth to get it that cheap.
However, say there was a bandwidth repository between me and the backbone, like at my isp. A huge cache for all of the websites and other files that transfer between the customer websites and viewers on the other end. Whenever a single static file is transfered more than a few times, the cache will pick it up and save it. From that point on, any incoming requests will stop at the isp and be served from the cache instead. If a site is extremely popular, the isp, with its much cheaper, much larger link to the internet will be the one serving all the content and the puny link to the actual website will only be used for initial transfers. Of course, keeping just one level of cache would be inefficient. If a site is REALLY popular, then it could be bumped even closer to the backbone and get served from that point. It could also work in the other direction. If a large number of people on a network access a specific website, then a local cache could store the website data locally to serve to the local users, since its much cheaper to transfer data on a local network than over the internet. This is the biggest issue with napster and college campuses. Its an order of magnitude cheaper to install more bandwidth on campus than it is to utilize the internet feed. If napster only traded files amongst users on the local network and then only went out to the internet if the requested file couldn't be found on any of the 10,000+ local systems.
However, intellectual property laws come into play here. I don't want anyone mirroring my information because I can't sell banner ads to distribute it. Of course, I can't sell banner ads anyway, but thats not really the point. This mentality ends up stalling the whole process.
Yes, I know this wouldn't work for dynamic pages. however, try something. Pick a website, especially an extremely flashy one. Point wget at it and download all the content on the main page. Then do something to form a dynamic change and repeat the process. How much of the data has actually changed? Webpage code itself is relatively small compared to the size of the images, java applets, and banner ads.
This will increase the base cost to the provider of the information or service, as you are now purchasing not only an internet connection, but also cache space. However, as you well know, its much cheaper to purchase something once than to pay for something constantly. In addition, if you can cut down your required bandwidth by 80% because most of your content need not transfer over your expensive pipe and can instead transfer over the pipe of your isp, which only costs them half as much due to their ability to purchase a much larger pipe and get a better data rate for the dollar. Not to mention the fact that the price drops even more the next jump upstream. Its not unreasonable to cut your bandwidth costs down to 10-20% of what would be needed if you served everything from your own system through your own internet feed.
The third issue is that more and more people expect a large quantity of their services to be performed for free or very little. Cell phones are free. There are free computers, free internet access, free long distance. SOMEBODY has to pay for all of this. In the end, its going to be the corporations that end up selling us products and inevitably paying our salaries. Thats how economy works. And if they're going to give away all this stuff for free, they're going to need to have more accurate marketing data so they get a better return on their investment. While I don't feel they should be automatically provided with this information without my permission, I don't feel like its too far out of line to request such information in exchange for an otherwise free product so they can push products my way that I would otherwise be interested in purchasing anyways.
So understand the perspective. We want unlimited privacy, with no intrusion into our lives whatsoever. No cookies, no anonymous tracking, no personal tracking. We don't want any random spam, no targeted advertising (still spam), no banner ads, no targeted banner ads, we want our internet service free or very low cost, with lots of extra services, but nobody calling us to sell us anything. At some point, something is going to have to give. Figure out where you want it to be. Either you're going to have to tell someone that you're a 30 year old male who has an interest in reading about cars, or you're going to have to pay yahoo money so you can do it.
-Restil
(sorry for the extended, pointless rant)
Re:Yahoo! MasterCard Ad (Score:2)
Re:Not Much (Score:2)
Re:too much competition (Score:1)
For Yahoo? (Score:2)
Now Google, I'd pay a lot for that.
Re:Not Much (Score:2)
Yahoo, next in the line to the dot.com cemetery? (Score:1)
Re:Not Much (Score:2)
and while I agree that there is a lot to be desired in terms of
quality, I think there are examples of excellence in the Science
hierarchy. Yahoo, by contrast, is usually poor quality in Science.
As for your analysis of what is wrong with dmoz, I couldn't agree
more. It has also been getting worse quite quickly in recent months.
Unfortunately, the rivals to it that I know of are not credible, the
least bad being Dave Winer's ultra-lightweight HTML directories. Do
you know of any better projects?
How much indeed (Score:3)
Oh, I thought you meant, for the whole company.
Re:Not Much (Score:1)
OK, I must admit that I haven't looked that thoroughly through everything there. Particularily, in Biology, there is a lot of things I would have no clue about.
No, unfortunately....
Re:Use the Open Directory Project instead (Score:1)
You know what finally made me quit? For half a year, someone had submitted a portuguese language site to me. Now, I can't read much portuguese, but browsing the entire site, I could see it was a high quality site, I could see that because I'm an expert on the subject, I recognize illustrations, some nomenclature, etc. Well, I sent it over to World/Portuguese, who are short of editors, and the site remained in unreviewed for a month. The submitter submitted it again, and I sent a note apoligizing for the fact that I couldn't accept it as per the guidelines, and that it's stuck in unreviewed, and encouraged the submitter to sign up as an editor. This very knowledgeable person was rejected as an editor. This continued for half a year, with me apologizing to the submitter each time of the terrible shortcoming of dmoz. Eventually, there were so many corresponding cats in World, I made a category with links to those and decided to list this site in this cat. Well, the cat with non-english sites eventually became obsolete, and so an editall goes in and moves the site to World/Portuguese, where it is stuck in unreviewed. Naturally, the editall made no attempt to understand why the site was listed where it was. Now, I'd like her to apologize to the submitter why the high-quality site is not listed in dmoz, I can tell you, you don't feel too good about it. So, the problem is here, dmoz has to reject high quality sites because it doesn't fit in the rigid hierarchy. You know, when dealing with editalls, they usually stick so tightly to the guidelines they could be replaced very easily in most cases by a robot.It's just rational what they do. On the other hand, editalls also go around accepting low-quality sites while category editors are discussing whether the quality of a site is good enough for accepting. It's a mess, and it won't improve.
not again.. (Score:1)
look ma its raining dot coms
i'm sure yahoo is going down too
so good luck to you when you are still up
time to switch over to google..
"The world is coming to an end. Please log orff."
Re:Walmart? (Score:1)
On top of that, sales growth rate is slowing. Their same store sales are up a mere 8% for the year, down from 9% last year, looking fairly shabby compared to the 13-15% other large general purpose retailers have been experiencing.
Walmart has never had an effective long term vision, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass. If they'd put some thought into it in the first place, they probably would never have built many of those stores that they've been closing. When your job is retail, researching your location is critical. Walmart doesn't bring anything to the table that the other guys don't, and if they continue to grow more slowly, they will get passed up, and they will eventually lose their prominence. It ain't gonna happen overnight, if at all, and there's an awful lot of time for them to find great executives to revitalize the company, but right now, yes, I would say that they are indeed in "a world of hurt."
Re:Use the Open Directory Project instead (Score:1)
I can't really sympathise. If you started editing there, why didn't you clean it up yourself? Why didn't you add sites of good quality? If there aren't any sites of good quality on history of science on the web, that's hardly ODP's fault. If there are, why didn't you add them?
It should be apparent to anyone knowledgeable in the history of science that this category is of very bad quality.
Care to elaborate? I'm not very knowledgeable in the history of science, but it looks okay to me. The main category is full of odds and ends, but you've got to expect that when most sciences fit into neat little boxes - all you're left over with is the obscure things and things that don't fit. Apart from the inclusion of phrenology (hah!) I can't see anything wrong with it (the main category, that is).
Google? (Score:2)
I hate to be a troll, but does anyone use yahoo anymore when google search is so much better? Yes I understand Yahoo has other services, but there are other sites that do those services better than yahoo. (e.g. Yahoo Auctions vs Ebay, etc )
Do you? (Score:1)
I know I sure don't especially since the web results come from google, which has it's own website...
-B
Re:you're kidding, right? (Score:1)
herm... (Score:2)
Good plan... (Score:2)
OK, so they want to charge money, but not deliver content? Why would I pay Yahoo to 'aggregate' content, if I could do the aggregation myself and maybe even pay the content CREATORS.
Yahoo just wants to be a paid middle man? We're getting rid of those from the real world. Why do we want to create them on the internet?
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Re:Great... (Score:2)
Yahoo today... Slashdot - 10 years later (Score:4)
10 clear commercial comments - 50 cents
1 non-commercial comment - 1 cents
3 phrases containing words/phrases that fall in Act of Undesirable Words - 75 cents
1 flamebait - 25 cents
2 jokes - 60 cents
5 comments concerning Linux/BSD/OSS - -50 cents
Total: $1.61
Microsoft Network Pocket Tax - 25%
Total $2.02
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Re:Of course... (Score:1)
Re:Good plan... (Score:1)
Will you still want to pay the creators? Or will you try to devise a way to pay them less than they're currently getting from Yahoo in the name of liberation?
Am I missing something? (Score:5)
In addition, they are charging for reviews of ALL commercial sites that fit into certain categories.
What's the problem here? The same fee is being charged to all businesses. Regardless of the businesses size, the review will be completed within seven days.
Sites that don't go into those categories still get in for free (albeit in a unknown timeframe).
They're being sensible and not charging VISITORS to the sites. How is this different from a TV network?
Re:Of course... (Score:1)
A very interesting site can be found at www.allaboutsex.org (it's for kids, very interesting)
Re:Of course... (Score:1)
It's not uncommon to have a crush on a teacher, but there's not usually anything you can do about it.
A very interesting site can be found at www.allaboutsex.org (it's for kids, very interesting)
I'm already paying for some Yahoo... (Score:3)
I just got a eLink device (RiM 850 pager) that runs Yahoo. Mail, messenger, WML browser, plus the RiM built-ins like calendar and address book. Flat rate of $35 a month. So far, it seems pretty cool. My only wish is that AOL would wake up and allow AIM to interoperate with other messaging platforms, like Yahoo.
But the point of this story is that there are value-adds that Yahoo can provide that are worth paying for. I'm going to be using this for work instead of a pager. It's much more useful, and cheaper (as far as I've seen).
-Todd
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misleading search engines (Score:3)
that said, fees for huge subsections (say IBM or Microsoft) where everything is mapped out in grand detail, that I can see.
but they should be featured is a special section so you know what they are, specific commercial listings.
beyond that, not a big deal.
Isn't this the US of A? (Score:4)
Given that, I don't know why is everyone so surprised that Yahoo! wants to charge. What I don't understand is, can you really live off sponsors forever? Eventually, I see all these services charging... How else are they supposed to feed those large teams of programmers?
Can you go to the grocery store and get stuff for free? Hell no. I know there's alternatives, as in, you can grow your own veggies (e.g. pot ;-), or visit a non-paying search engine, but eventually, doesn't it boil down to the old adage - "you pay, you play?"
Napster won't wither because of "don't kill the messenger", but sure as f**k we all knew that everyone on there has pirated at least ten songs, if not more. So, how can Napster stand to make any profit just by letting everyone share files? I dont get it.. They have to start charging some measly fee..
I know it isn't nice to take away something that was given for granted (free), but I just cannot comprehend or better yet, visualize, how are these companies supposed to make money unless they start charging? Can you put yourself in their shoes, i.e. it was your company.. Would you settle for no or little money? Would you like to make MORE money and expand? Well, just how are you gonna do that by letting people spread pirated songs and not charging them something for the service and fend off the RIAA with the revenue/profits?
Someone explain to me the basics of capitalism, 'cause I apparently, the C.S. graduate, is clueless ;->.
Thank you.
--
Everybody wants me to pay $20 per month (Score:1)
I look forward to the time when companies large and small begin to understand that people are not interested in handing out monthly checks for every service that's offered.
Vanguard
Re:misleading search engines (Score:2)
Re:Not Much (Score:1)
All search engines can be bought off. This is a part of the business model, unsuccessful as it tends to be.
Re:Not Much (Score:2)
Also, people who find out about this questionable business method might question the accuracy of the search results and stop using sites like this. Yahoo should do something like google, which sells ads but not listings, as they are in a different color and distinct from normal searches (although google is a search engine, not a directory).
I did not submit my business site to yahoo when I saw they were asking money for the submission. I also removed yahoo.com from my toolbar and bookmarks. I do not support pay-to-play, and I hope to god I am not alone. I would be OK with the idea of paying to have pictures put beside my directory listing, or other ways of making my name stand out (like the telephone directories do) but I won't pay just to list.
As far as I'm concerned yahoo is no longer useful to me if they only accept entries for companies that do enough business online to warrant paying for a listing. My company website is really just a reinforcement to my other marketing methods. I very rarely buy things online. I usually am just looking online to find out things like: what is their phone number, what is their email address, what type of image do they project, or (most often) tech support or product information. I can't justify paying to have our website listed when I make zero revenue from it.
Conversely, if I know that the only sites listed on yahoo.com are businesses that pay to get listed, the value of using yahoo drops to zero. Many of the sites I want to see will not be listed.
I'll use google instead thanks.
for those of you who are wondering what my business is that I don't sell online, I'm a custom jeweller [idar.com]
Good for the user (Score:1)
If applied only to the business section and the price per year was say, equal to or less than the cost of a domain registration, it would sort out the serious businesses from the con artists. A small fee such as that is nothing for a legitimate business and this would mean that all Yahoo business results were people who were obviously serious about doing business with the consumer.
If however, rankings were sold, as Altavista was planning on, then the idea would be preposterous. It should also only be applied to categories for businesses, if somebody wants to add a page about how they take care of their pet then it is ridiculous to think of charging them.
If done right, adding a small fee for registration where appropriate could make Yahoo the one-stop shopping search engine for most.
I really, really want to pay!!! (Score:2)
I am willing to pay $1000 a year for that. I really mean it. Yahoo! does my attachment virus scanning, receives all my faxes via a free U.S. fax number, stores my e-mail so I can access it worldwide, manages spam e-mail and I have never been without e-mail since I started to use Yahoo! e-mail.
I cannot get the same service level anywhere else, but because I use it for business, the advertisements are a real problem.
The obvious alternative for Yahoo! mail is:
- Set up a Microsoft Exchange server
- Get a fixed internet access
- Set up a web-interface for the Exchange server
- Set up a firewall
- Hire somebody to administer the Exchange server
- Hire somebody to keep the firewall up-to-date
- Set up virus scanning software and keep it up-to-date
- Get some fax software, that can put the faxes into Exchange server.
I cannot do that for $1000 a year.
Re:For Yahoo? (Score:1)
I wouldnt give yahoo a wooden nickel - its not my fault there's a hundred search engines out there competing for a diminishing advertising purse. They can index fuckedcompany.com from now until yesterday for all I care. In fact, I recomend they do.
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The next announcement, only a few words different (Score:1)
FP
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Do you? (Score:1)
Re:Good plan...but misquote (Score:1)
It's from 'the moon is a harsh mistress' and it is
tanstaafl - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch,
the first a is significant because the acronym is pronounced tan staff el. just thought you might like to know.
Re:Not Much (Score:2)
than a placement at DMoz, though, so that suggests Yahoo's reputation
is worth more than all the others put together.
Re:Google? (Score:2)
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Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
_____________
To Clarify... (Score:5)
Obviously it would be inane for Yahoo to start charging to search the web, send email, or do anything else you can already do for free on yahoo and other sites.
What you are probably looking at is broadband content services similar to things shaping up at web music sites such as MP3.com, and Napster, as well as broadband video.
I personally am convinced that people will pay for content if it is quality, and delivered better than what is otherwise freely available - not sure if this pans out with the rest of the users out there or not. We'll see.
Not Much (Score:3)
It is sad that sites like yahoo and looksmart have to go to charging for listings in order to get money. They should not do this but instead focus on creating quality directories that will give people reason to return. Making people pay for listings compromises their integrity by causing bad sites to be potentially listed while not listing good sites that might not want to fork over the money.
Also, people who find out about this questionable business method might question the accuracy of the search results and stop using sites like this. Yahoo should do something like google, which sells ads but not listings, as they are in a different color and distinct from normal searches (although google is a search engine, not a directory).
On another note, at least yahoo is not quite as stupid as looksmart, in that it only charges for business categories. Businesses might be able to fork over a bunch of money for listings but personal homepages that might have the most devoted people and highest quality (no commercial motivation) wouldn't pay money that often.
Use the Open Directory Project instead (Score:4)
Why come? (Score:2)
"Blow up your TV/Throw away your paper/
Move to the country/Build you a home"
Re:Everybody wants me to pay $20 per month (Score:2)
even internet billionares need to eat
Me, Personally? (Score:3)
Nothing. But if I had a choice between two ISPs, and one came bundled with Yahoo! and the other didn't, that might influence my decision.
Of course I'd be paying for it indirectly, and that would make the ISP look a lot like AOL. As a general rule, I've shunned ISPs that offer premium content, so now that I think of it, the ISP offering Yahoo! wouldn't win me.
At this point the only thing I really use them for is the free finance stuff. If they close that off, I'll just use my broker stuff more. Their finance pages are great; they should license that software to brokers, who would probably pay good money to give their users something with which they are already familiar.
Actually... their charts use GNUplot. If they sold the software to brokers, they'd have to GPL that part, maybe even the whole thing.
Re:Not Much (Score:3)
Yahoo is quite a bit better than DMoz, whilst for specialist
areas (eg. in science and computing) DMoz absolutely trounces Yahoo.
DMoz has more `raw' listings than Yahoo, and is growing faster, but
it's Business category is fraught with issues of editor abuse, and
Yahoo has much more influence on the face of the net (yahoo.com is the
most well known website, according to many surveys). It's going to be
a long time before DMoz is seen as anything but second best for plain
commercial listings.
Yahoo! MasterCard Ad (Score:4)
Yahoo! Clubs Account: $25
Being able to search for pr0n by category: $100
Knowing that you can get all that stuff for free at other websites: Priceless.
There are some things that money can't buy. For everything else, there's a Yahoo! CEO who wants to bilk my grandma.
yahoo provides many more services... (Score:2)
These are the "free" services that everybody has been expecting to become less profitable. People are becoming immune to banner ads and furthermore they have less site-loyalty than they used to, which makes your advertising ability less powerful.
With your rampant "screw that, its not free like my pet OS", you might be giving up ALL the internet luxuries that you enjoy. If yahoo goes under, investors will notice. And not every company is going to make a linux version of their chat client (like yahoo does).
Oh screw it, everything should be free. I'm alive, I MUST deserve it...
Re:Use the Open Directory Project instead (Score:2)
--diggiedug [dmoz.org]
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Re:Use the Open Directory Project instead (Score:2)