My Yahoo! Years, Part 3: OSHA and Ergonomics Were Less Important than Ideating - Page 5

The post concluded, “Think like your customers and give them what they really want — transparency and control.”

TechCrunch also had a pertinent question: Why can’t Yahoo! Search Marketing block fraudulent transactions? According to Duncan Riley in a December 17, 2007 post, a leading affiliate of Yahoo! Search marketing’s program was earning five-figure monthly returns until he received an e-mail from Yahoo! saying that 65 percent of his traffic was signing up for YSM with stolen credit cards, and so Yahoo! canceled his account.

Riley didn’t think it made sense to cancel the affiliate’s account.

I have to admit that I applied for Yahoo! Search Marketing for one of my blogs but was rejected. Google, however, accepted my blog for its free Adsense ads.

I notice that for pay-per-click (PPC) ads, you can also be shown on Google Maps, something that doesn’t seem to be available on Yahoo!. Yahoo! maps, like Google's, can give you live or real-time traffic, but this isn’t has good as SigAlert.com. Google took their maps and improved them with features such as terrain and street view. The street view is great for someone who’s going to a new place and wants to know what landmarks to look out for.

Why didn’t Yahoo! think like map users? Why didn't Yahoo! think to make software easier to understand and easier to use, not only for its customers, but also for its workforce? Too busy ideating?

While busy ideating, Yahoo! failed to consider simple things like ergonomics in its new software design. If Yahoo! can't think of their own employees, can they really know what people need or want?

Article Author: Purple Tigress

Former theater critic for the LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times . For the last five years, an editing slave at a dot-com but recently laid off. Currently an under-employed freelance writer and artist.

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