More from YHOO cover story in this week's Bus. Week. Fancy that YHOO has a "cool" shopping rating and a good shopping function. Huh, CDNOW mentioned. Huh, I guess amzn will not have the ecommerce industry to itself. What a wacky world.
LP
The Be-All and Do-All of the Net
Forget directories. Yahoo! is a full-blown package of information and
services. Here's how a sampling of services on Yahoo! stacks up against
rivals, with ''rad'' as the highest rating, followed by ''cool,'' then ''so what,''
and finally ''lame.''
FINANCE
A superdeep set of offerings, including quotes, graphs, analysts' ratings,
and company information--all easy to find. The breadth of news from
Reuters, S&P, and AP sets it apart, although Microsoft's Investor and Excite
also are first-rate. Yahoo! Finance isn't for high-roller investors but is great
for little guys.
RATING: RAD
REAL ESTATE
A wide variety of tightly integrated information from real estate's RE/Max and
online loan service E-Loan, as well as national classifieds on home sales
and rentals. Although Excite offers easier-to-use graphics and Microsoft's
HomeAdvisor is flashy, Yahoo! has nifty information on crime rates and
quality of life.
RATING: COOL
HEALTH
To put it nicely, Yahoo! has a lot of work to do. The service provides health
news from Reuters and medical site listings, but Excite, Infoseek, and
Lycos do a better job by offering news features, tips, and quizzes from
iVillage and HomeArts. For great sites, check out Thrive, InteliHealth, and
Mayo Health.
RATING: LAME
SEARCH
Yahoo! pioneered the field, using categories as a way to help guide you
through searches. Now, Excite and Lycos help people wade through data
better. Their solution? Asking whether the results are hot or cold, and then
looking up data that are closer to the target. Excite also suggests first and
last names to narrow searches.
RATING: COOL
NEWS
This is the place for news junkies. The vast selection of news
sources--from AP to Hollywood Reporter--is awesome. Also offers a wide
variety of topics, from technology to human interest. Still, it can be
overwhelming--with news bits, short takes, and in-depth stories galore.
Snap! and Excite don't give up a lot of ground, though.
RATING: RAD
PERSONALIZATION
My Yahoo! is extensive. It lets you pick your favorite topics--from stocks to
weather--by creating a site customized to your tastes. True, Excite goes
one better by having your preferences travel with you throughout that site.
My Yahoo!, though, is really worth using if you plan to spend much time on
the site.
RATING: COOL
TRAVEL
This smart setup offers hotel, car, and flight reservations. But the bookings
automatically link to travel service Sabre, without giving alternatives such as
bargain-finder Priceline. Infoseek and Lycos first link to Microsoft's Expedia
and Preview Travel and connect to other sites.
RATING: SO WHAT
SHOPPING
If you thought shopping malls were dead on the Web, think again. Yahoo!
has one, and it's doing its darnedest to lock you into its choice of stores,
including Gap and CDnow. Snap! has easy-to-use listings and search to
help sort through a wider selection. Yahoo! is still hep, offering an electronic
shopping assistant.
RATING: COOL |
