A special report looks At Yahoo’s functionality, or lack thereof
SUNNYVALE, CA: Recent studies about Yahoo’s services conclude that the website is unable to deliver commonplace expectations. Users are constantly prompted for logins, email spam is proliferate and ads are repetitive. As a service, Yahoo’s services are exuding the same signs suffered by people who have dementia.
A common issue associated the disease is the inability to remember names and faces. Experts agree that on many levels, Yahoo is suffering from what is being defined as, ‘digital dementia.‘
Kris Andersen, the founder of Harvard’s Digital Studies Program, agrees with the assessments. “The Yahoo user is challenged on levels that equate to what children have to deal with when a parent suffers from dementia,” said Kris. “There’s no reason for a user to have to login several times a week. Yahoo just… forgets. It’s okay for the elderly, not so much when you’re a leading web company.”
Officials at Yahoo declined phone calls to discuss the situation, however experts who follow the company express serious concerns with the site’s functionality.
Ronald Draper, a Yahoo user of fifteen years, noted additional concerns about the site’s services. “Imagine an aging parent sending you newspapers clippings about subject matter you have no interest in twice a day, every week. That’s the Yahoo email experience, and frankly it sucks.”
George Jefferson, a married man from Ridgewood New York, experienced another disturbing trend. “My wife uses my office laptop. She’s obsessed with the Eames Chair. It’s lovely, it’s also $5,000 dollars, and I can’t afford to buy it for her. But Yahoo tracked my wife’s activity on my laptop. Every time I go to Yahoo now, there’s that freaking ad for the chair! It’s the only thing Yahoo remembers to do well.. remind me how I can’t afford the things my wife wants.”
This Yahoo experience reminds many of aging parents who not only nag, they forgot they did so, so they repeat themselves again and again like Yahoo targeted advertising.
The overall assessment is for Yahoo to dial down cookie targeting and start providing services that are on par with the twenty-first century. This will enable consumers to enjoy Yahoo for something other than watching bizarre user-generated videos or reading brainless celebrity gossip.
