Hi, everyone:
Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate your passion about Yahoo! Groups. Here are a few comments I want to make sure to address right now:
@Ruby, Oskar, Dan & Jonny: Thanks for your kind words. I’m glad you liked the blog, and that it helped clear up some confusion.
@ Tae: The Pulse connection was actually launched two years ago and we pointed out more details on the blog. You might want to share this help link
@PJ Duane: One of the main objectives of our remodel was to create simpler language and an easier interface. Therefore your feedback regarding the new version being “jargonated” is particularly important to us — could you elaborate on what you found unclear and what you suggest as replacements?
@ Marius: I am so glad to know you found it helpful — please keep your suggestions coming, your comments are a good example of the type of feedback we can benefit from. I will check into your concern regarding the visually impaired; I know that we included blind people in user testing. I’ll follow up with a post soon about this issue.
@ Teresa: I am sorry but you won’t have the option to switch between versions.
Finally, we created the suggestion board and the blog because we value your opinions. We’re working to create the most valuable and easy-to-use products for the majority of your needs.
A gentle reminder to keep your comments respectful and constructive.
Rest assured that I will continue to take in all the feedback and will provide timely reports to our product team members. They are extremely conscious of your input and have already taken action on many of your comments.
You said: “change is never easy”.
-> Not true. People *love* change that helps them. It’s the changes that have more detractions than benefits that are “never easy”.
You said: “Once we’ve remodeled all of our groups, there will no longer be an option to switch back and forth between versions.”
-> This is the chicken’s approach. If you really believe in what you’re doing, and really value your customers, all you need to do is keep the switch option and get the *real* feedback from people’s free choices of what works best for them.
-> This is also the risky approach and the one most likely to alienate people. Major transitions of systems as immense as yours are fraught with the risks of unanticipated issues and unintended consequences. Running the old system in parallel for an extended time minimizes those risks.
Mellisa, I think YahooGroups’s e-mail has become very unreliable since this “upgrade” was announced. I know that as moderator, I only occasionally get my usual e-mail notification about pending messages. And e-mails that I have sent to own group have disappeared into a “black hole”. You might want to try posting directly on your group’s web page — that seems like the most reliable option at the moment.
The euphemistically-named “remodelling” of Yahoo Groups is utterly gratuitous and inimical to the very raison d’etre on which they have operated so successfully since they were inaugurated. No amount of persuasive marketing-speak will alter the fact that the basic modus operandi of Yahoo Groups will be changed to the overwhelming detriment of all involved. I own and/or moderate several groups: with one of these we have already set up home at Windows Live as a temporary shelter while we review long-term options, which could include starting up our own website to function much as Yahoo Groups does now. It’s utter madness that one has to be doing this, but clearly Yahoo is being totally intransigent and obdurate about this matter in its determination to reincarnate everything as a social network site. I agree with an earlier poster who observed that this could go down as one of the biggest internet blunders of all time.
I have attempted to post a matress, 2 dressers, and 2 end tables for 3 days now, and they ahve yet to be approved. I am becoming extremely frustrated because I am seeing other people’s posts go through. What is going on? I even emailed the moderator and did a subject line moderator too.
I am new. It say my post had to be approved. How long does this take. thanks
A real shame that the remodel is going forward. Unless the remodel is seriously remodeled again, it will likely be the end of our Yahoo Group—The Message functionality is simply far too inefficient and difficult to use (compared to Yahoo Classic). We might be able to limp along using just Digest Emails, but some users have never warmed up to that option, preferring to visit the Group website throughout the day… They will mostly give up on the group, given how poorly the Message section (remodeled) works.
This remodel is, for every one of us users in my group (and countless more, based on reading these blog comments) an unwanted, un-aksed-for, and nearly unusable change, which sadly ruins an enjoyable aspect of our lives.
What is even worse, is the endless feedback here CLEARLY NOT in favor of the remodel, all posted to Yahoo’s blogs and comments which state at the top “We’re listening.” As I type this, just below the comment box I see “Help us improve Yahoo Groups–tell us what you think.” Clearly, all of that is worthless lip service, as Yahoo isn’t really listening to us, nor interested in listening to us (based on their actions) and putting a pause on the remodel to tweak it here or there will not, in fact, fix this remodel mess.
huh. you value our opinion yet you are going ahead with this travesty that will ruin yahoo groups and what made them great before your “team” decided they needed to look good on their resumes. i am a web reader only. if i wanted a social network group i’d join facebook. for the past few years i have watched my privacy compromised in every way on yahoo mail, and now yahoo groups will do that too. why would i want to know who joined or who posted what or who took a dump in the last hour? really! i joined yahoo groups that represented my interests, hobbies, life’s work, and passions and met some wonderful people through that. gone is the feeling of safety and privacy. gone are the features such as expanded posts, searching for a post by subject line. gone are all the perks for web readers.
all that will happen is that yahoo will tank from the mass exodus of groups and group members that cannot stand these changes being rammed down our throats with little warning. we are expected to be grateful to you for your little tutorials where we have to take our valuable time away from work and family to reinvent the wheel. we have given our “valuable” opinions. we said keep groups as they are. we told you why the new “remodel” is not working, and how.you have just told us it isn’t worth a lick and to basically get over it. i will be looking to leave yahoo, in every aspect; email, groups, and all. google is looking mighty good right now!
Layla,
I found you on Linked-In which eventually took me to this amazing piece of wisdom on your excellent Silcon Valley blog:
http://laylasabourian.wordpress.com/author/laylasabourian/
and scroll down the interview to this item:
7. Why do you think certain online communities fail? According to Forester Research, office politics play a major role. In my experience, the communities that tend to have failed are due to lack of proper goal setting, and not having defined objectives in place. Most marketing fails when the company strives for company needs in lieu of the customers – particularly true for social marketing. When a community only pushes sales and not the value-add to the customer, it is bound to fail.
PLEASE Layla, apply this in your shiny new job.
Have the new look by all means, add the chat if you wish, it’s useful to some.
But PLEASE look after the STRUCTURE of our Content. That is the one True Goal that uour passionate customers are setting you here.
Groups are for storing information, not just for pleasant conversation.
Forty years ago I exchanged letters with my family every few days, and our lives at that time are recorded in box-files. That’s what a Group does.
Now I ring Mother and we chat on the phone. It’s nice and immediate, but what we talked about and when flies out of our aging memories. That’s Chat.
i know you’ve said that the messages will still be saved, but that’s no use unless we (and especially new members) can actually find stuff. Presenting messages as mere strings of Comments takes away the tools of our trade.
People have talked angrily about leaving, and made odious comparisons with true Social Networking products. Don’t let that hot talk deceive you into thinking they are against change – believe me they’ll face BIG change on moving away from Yahoo.
What they are telling you is that within a couple of days the Yahoo Group product has gone from being the best I know of to being not even a contender.
And the guys who will go first are the very ones who read the web pages and see the adverts.
Layla, you already have an impressive CV in marketing, and I’d like your next CV entry to flag up a success rather presiding over a disaster.
As I understand marketing, it’s ensuring that every breath a corporation takes somehow furthers the Customers’ ambitions.
So who exactly is your Customer Layla?
Is it Yodelling Irving?
Is it the advertisers?
Is it the shareholders?
Or is it the Users of what is still (underneath) a world-beating product?
You might be tempted to think that last category are the least important – these little guys with their zany hobbies and their tedious medical records. Not cool maybe.
But in them Yahoo has an unpaid workforce, literally the size of the Chinese Army, beavering away at building the biggest mountain of Content in history, and sucking in new Yahoo users by the million.
You might not be technical but your record shows you’ve got brains and can sell. |It’s time to sell Yahoo’s unsung star product to its new management!
David
England
After looking at the new group format I want to let you know someone from your competiors has infiltrated your your web design dept. they should get a big promotion for selling this idea to Yahoo.
This new format for groups is terrible if you continue, this will be good for google, it’s to bad you can’t believe your users.
hello all
The sample I saw makes the yahoo groups look like facebook. I prefer the groups to be set up like emails. If I wanted to chat on facebook, I would.
Tonite my group switched back unexpectedly to the old style Yahoo Groups look, feel & operation, and we could not be happier…!!! My hands were shaking as I quickly emailed several Group members who had already basically given up on our Yahoo Group, under the facebook-remodel.
Our fear is that this is only a temporary reset, however… yet our hope is that the reset back to old style is a response from Yahoo, based on overwhelming (negative) response from the many dedicated, long-time, active users of Yahoo Groups.