In the annals of Web design mistakes the recent redesign of Yahoo Finance deserves its own History Channel episode in their “Engineering Disasters” series. Granted Yahoo’s troubles are no secret in the financial world. To some it appeared management was trying to whittle the value of the company so low another company could pick it up for pocket change. From that standpoint it worked because Verizon recently purchased them.
Some (Malcolm Berko) in the financial world described analysts working for Yahoo Finance as “unable to find a lit candle in a darkened room” which it appears Yahoo took to heart. The site appears to contain almost all click-bait and spam from other sites now. One can’t really trust a word of what they read. Some of the articles have “Sponsored” in very light gray on white easy to miss text and others seem to be just as promotional yet are without the disclaimer. Personally, I’ve gotten to the point I don’t even trust the quotes or market feeds I see there.
The latest redesign removed the one piece of functionality Yahoo Finance had which made it worth enduring the site, the Edgar search. Yes, anyone can visit the Edgar site and look stuff up, but their Edgar search was automatic. When you looked up a symbol the bottom of the page had the last N Edgar filings for that symbol sorted by date. One didn’t have to dig through a tutorial on how to use Edgar to get the relevant documents. Now at the bottom you get “Sponsored” articles.
All this leaves one wondering, is the new new new new new Internet economy all about selling ads which never even get an impression?