May 1st, 2006
Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us
Yahoo launches a consumer tech site and the blogosphere is not impressed . Why — because they’re all a BUNCH OF GEEKS (with all due respect).
Here’s why I think Yahoo Tech is a serious threat to CNET:
1. “Advisor” Blogs — Sure they’re “hokey,” as Richard MacManus points out, but this is at least an attempt at reviews and advice that AVERAGE PEOPLE can relate to — and they have four different strokes for four different kinds of folks — The Boomer, The Working Guy, The Techie Diva, and The Mom. Compare that to Kent German on CNET — he’s a smart guy who knows his cell phones, but man, what a sourpuss.
2. Focus on user reviews rather than expert reviews — most people would rather trust reviews from their peers than some expert — isn’t that the whole 2.0 principle!?! (Social media is all the rage with the Web 2.0 fan club…except when it comes to their precious tech. Then they bemoan the lack of “experts.”) There are links to CNET and PC World reviews if you must here from an “authority.”
3. Q&A on products from Yahoo Answers — I shudder to say it, but this actually feels like “synergy.”
4. My Tech allows you to save products you’re considering — a simple but useful customization feature — and for those who like to write reviews, you can aggregate those in one place as well.
Yahoo understands what CNET and the geekosphere do not — that most people are interested in consumer technology, but it’s really not a big deal for them. We in the geekosphere may live and die for technology, but it’s not a religion for most people.
Both Richard and Om Malik bemoan the site’s “consumerism” because it doesn’t have the sober tech-as-religion feel of CNET. But in the all important advertising game of who will reach the larger audience of cell phone and laptop buyers, I’d give Yahoo the edge.
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I disagree, this looks lame to me because it’s a big ad, it’s unfocused, and it’s creating a new market which I’m not sure exists– the techphobic person who wants to spend a bunch of time on the internet geeking out on technology. If I’m not into technology, why do I need a massive tech site to begin with? You may see synergy, but I see its far more common cousin, shitergy.
The content is not aggregated enough and clearly driven by biz dev people who struck deals with publishers to feature their content and sell subscriptions or books (For Dummies, which are naturally more outdated when it comes to tech then the living, breathing online tech world). Yahoo Answers integration has some potential, but the way it’s strucutred currently makes it a chore to find quick answers to less-specific questions. Tech Advisors? When was the last time anything on the internet with “Barb, the totally rockin’ Gen X gadget head” actually suceeded? The whole not-stock-photo-but-almost aspect will not sell, people use the information for good, hard information and information leverage. Yahoo Tech is designed with the current online ad market in mind, and not the user.
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“Shit-ergy.” Good one, Sally.
Scott, I think you have a point about it approaching the average user on a non-geek level, which has some merit to it — but my big problem isn’t the lack of experts, it’s the fact that the thing looks like brochure-ware, with clip-art style layouts and photos. Cheesy.
Granted, CNET is no beauty queen either, but it makes me wonder whether Yahoo’s site wasn’t designed primarily for advertisers rather than users. I think users will sense that. Sometimes ugly but functional (a la craigslist.org) is better.
[…] Scott Karp got his knickers in a twist and is taking tech bloggers to task and says Yahoo Tech is tech for rest of us. Funny, my point, exactly. C/Net and Yahoo Tech two different audiences. Both Richard and Om Malik bemoan the site’s “consumerism” because it doesn’t have the sober tech-as-religion feel of CNET. […]
As far as the lack of expertise, please note a rather large amount of professional reviews aggregated for some products like this one:
http://tech.yahoo.com/pr/Canon-PowerShot-A510-Digital-Camera/1991697476
You’ve got the Consumer Reports, you have PC World, you have CNET. The number of those reviews will only grow with time, and should present a more objective view of the product to the user, than any review site that runs just 1 review of the product.
Mathew, just as users accept the “ugly” in the “ugly but useful,” I think Yahoo Tech users will accept the cheesy if Yahoo proves to be more useful than CNET, which I think it will.
Sally (or whoever you are), you’re creating a false polarization with “geeks” at one end and “technophobes” at the other. 80% of people are in the middle — they want and need technology, and want to make smart purchase decisions, but are more down-to-earth in their approach — Yahoo is aiming to steal them away from CNET. All of your other critique are pot shots at beta kinks to be worked out.
[IMG rex] Yahoo! Tech vs. CNET is no contest, as in, it’s NOT a contest: (Scott Karpon why the blogosphere isn’t impressed with Yahoo! Tech): “Why  because they’re all a BUNCH OF GEEKS.” (By “blogosphere,” I assume he’s referring to the tech blogosphere, as a quick Technorati search reveals that knitting bloggers have been strangely
I agree that it is a false polarization, but that’s exactly why I point it out. To me, and perhaps I’m wrong, the site’s use of personalities, big photos, highlighting very basic tech questions, etc. all point to creating a site for the uninformed. Is the middle, and not just the middle, the specific middle who want to go online and spend quite a while looking at tech products, really that uninformed?
And no, most of those aren’t pot-shots at beta problems. Fundamentally, the content the site guides me to is stuff like PC Magazine and For Dummies, which seem to be there because of Yahoo! marketing deals and not because it’s the most up-to-date and best content available.
I’m not saying this won’t steal some users from CNET, but given what Yahoo! can do, this feels half-baked and overly driven by marketing dudes.
(”Fox Interactive Media has picked up two small Web companies to complement earlier Internet acquisitions such as MySpace” — Newroo and kSolo hardly earth-shattering buys… haven’t seen a solid Web strategy yet from News Corp) -Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us (Scott Karp responds to criticism of Yahoo Tech by myself and Om Malik, amongst other geeks. Om responds. I’ll certainly be interested to see if/how Yahoo tech gathers a passionate user base around their site…)
(”Fox Interactive Media has picked up two small Web companies to complement earlier Internet acquisitions such as MySpace” — Newroo and kSolo hardly earth-shattering buys… haven’t seen a solid Web strategy yet from News Corp) -Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us (Scott Karp responds to criticism of Yahoo Tech by myself and Om Malik, amongst other geeks. Om responds. I’ll certainly be interested to see if/how Yahoo Tech gathers a passionate user base around their site…)
Publishing 2.0 » Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us Here’s why I think Yahoo Tech is a serious threat to CNET: Read/WriteWeb: Microcontent Aggregators: Peoplefeeds Peoplefeeds aggregates content from a variety of sources - a person’s blog(s), Flickr feed, del.icio.us links and so on.
[IMG rex] Yahoo! Tech vs. CNET is no contest, as in, it’s NOT a contest: (Scott Karpon why the blogosphere isn’t impressed with Yahoo! Tech): “Why  because they’re all a BUNCH OF GEEKS.” (By “blogosphere,” I assume he’s referring to the tech blogosphere, as a quick Technorati search reveals that knitting bloggers have been strangely
Fox Interactive Media has picked up two small Web companies to complement earlier Internet acquisitions such as MySpace”  Newroo and kSolo hardly earth-shattering buys… haven’t seen a solid Web strategy yet from News Corp) -Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us (Scott Karp responds to criticism of Yahoo Tech by myself and Om Malik, amongst other geeks. Om responds. I’ll certainly be interested to see if/how Yahoo Tech gathers a passionate user base around their site
[…] - Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us (Scott Karp responds to criticism of Yahoo Tech by myself and Om Malik, amongst other geeks. Om responds. I’ll certainly be interested to see if/how Yahoo Tech gathers a passionate user base around their site…) […]
I’ve been thinking about ‘making technology mainstream’ for a while now, ever since reading the Publishing 2.0 article, Yahoo Tech Is Tech For the Rest of Us. From my experiences working in a government organisation and for a non-profit organisation, I know that many (if not most) people find working with technology a battle, never knowing when it will suddenly crash or fail in some other way. The most