More “Modern” Yahoo Homepage Starts To Roll Out

We’ve known for quite some time that Yahoo was preparing to relaunch its homepage. We saw early evidence several months ago in screenshots and even more recently “in the wild.” But today, the “new Yahoo” is officially starting its rollout in the US.

Overall, the new homepage has an updated but similar look, with a range of visual and structural changes. For comparison, here is an image of the “old” Yahoo homepage, which is still live for most people:

Below is the new homepage (screenshot provided by Yahoo). The colors, the fonts, the icons and other elements of the page are slightly different. The changes aren’t dramatic and may not even be noticed immediately by some.

Behind the scenes, however, there have apparently been a number of improvements to make the site faster. This is one of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s big themes, especially when she discusses mobile: pages must load quickly.

The signed-in experience has been made more personal and sharing has been more deeply integrated into the experience, including mobile. Here’s what Mayer says in her blog post this morning:

Designed to be more intuitive and personal, the new Yahoo! experience is all about your interests and preferences. Since streams of information have become the paradigm of choice on the web, we’re introducing a newsfeed with infinite scroll, letting you experience a virtually endless feed of news articles. Whether you are a sports fanatic or entertainment buff, you can easily customize your newsfeed to your interests. And, to make Yahoo! even more social, you can log in with your Yahoo! or Facebook ID to get articles from thousands of news sources as well as those shared by your friends.

Because you come to Yahoo! everyday for must-know information, we’ve also introduced newly designed applications. From your local weather forecast to Facebook friends’ birthdays, you’ll always have the information you need. We’ve also refreshed some of what you love most — including our Yahoo! editorial features, and the daily snapshot into popular trending web searches.

The site looks better on mobile devices and has been optimized for smartphones and tablets. News now features an “infinite scroll” and can be more readily customized. There are also new “applications” that will reside on the homepage: stock quotes, sports scores, weather, Flickr, friends’ birthdays and horoscopes.

All of these changes have been undertaken to make Yahoo a better, more engaging experience across screens. The idea that Mayer continues to express in interviews is that Yahoo is a “starting point for your daily habits.”