Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

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> I haven't come across any other sites that even come close to [sports and finance] on Yahoo!

You haven't been able to find any other sites focusing on finance or sports on the internet? To be clear, yahoo does a decent job curating finance and sports sections, but it is extremely trivial to find sites similar to Yahoo. Here are a few, I found:

Finance:

========

Marketwatch[0], is very similar to yahoo finance. Owned by WSJ and Dow Jones.

Google Finance[1] is like Yahoo! finance, only done by google.

MSN Money[2] almost the exact same thing as Yahoo.

Then you have your more niche honorable mentions like motley fool, seekingalpha, zerohedge, etc.

SPORTS:

=======

Without repeating Google and Microsoft offerings, there is of course:

ESPN which is the second largest sports news provider, also they have a tv network about sports. They sports fairly hard.[3]

Bleecher Report is not to be out sportsed, sort of a hipster pitchfork media type sports player.[4]

CBS Sports[5]

NBC SPorts[6] This, and the preceding offering are large entrenched media rent collectors, which is similar to yahoo, except that they are profitable.

So, in finality, I find that statement absurd, but I am glad you enjoy yahoo. I am rooting for it as it is an under dog for sure.

[0]http://www.marketwatch.com

[1]http://www.google.com/finance

[2]http://www.msn.com/en-us/money

[3]http://espn.go.com

[4]BleacherReport.com

[5]CBSSports.com

[6]http://www.nbcsports.com

Hands down, Yahoo Finance is a much better site than Marketwatch. I'm picking on Marketwatch since you say that it can replace Yahoo Finance.

Here are a few data points:

Interface - YF has all the three indices information (S&P, Dow and Nasdaq) right in front of you. MW has this in a small box on the right. While this may seem trivial, over a period of time - YF sticks but MW doesn't.

Content - All the content above the fold on YF is related to the markets. If you look at MW , for instance there is an article filling up which airline features you should pay for - totally unrelated to markets and in the main view of the fold. This is not a one time phenomenon, but happens all the time. One of the reasons I stopped using MW.

Quote lookup - The quotes are all on the left and the lookup bar is right below the quotes. Also if you look up a stock and revisit the home page, that information is stored - without requiring you to sign up. SO you can just build a portfolio of stocks without even signing up. (Of course, if you clear your cookies this will be lost). Try doing this on MW - The quote look up bar isn't even obvious ( you have to hit on the search button to make it visible).

I can go on and on about feature comparison but what I'm trying to get at is - Yahoo Finance is one of the most usable sites when it comes to market information for a vast majority of users interested in the markets. They have carried over the same interface to other geographies as well. For example yahoo finance India isn't drastically different from Yahoo Finance US. So it wouldn't be really wise for a company to just abandon that user base.

I was pretty sure someone will make a comment like yours. You didn't disappoint. You want to me to go to 3 different sites for Finance when I can get everything at Yahoo! You want me to go to 4 different sites for Sports when I can get everything at Yahoo! Can you get Bleacher Report articles on ESPN? I will suggest comparing Yahoo! Finance and Sports with the sites you mentioned. You might be surprised that most sites you mentioned feed to Yahoo! and not vice-versa. I can go to all the sites you mentioned or just go to Yahoo!

Each mentioned site is missing something that is available on Yahoo! Either you browse through all the articles on Bleacher Report or you can see the most relevant ones on Yahoo! That is the difference.

Remember the keywords Portal, curated information, relevant information, comprehensive. None of the sites you mentioned are at a level of Yahoo!

I meant each site is as good as yahoo! not that you would have to go to each one, but I don't really care about sports. The finance sites are all drop in replacements and better than yahoo finance.

As for sports, if you want the same information but the caveat you seem hung up on is that it must come from different domains, just go to a reddit like aggregator. I get it, you like yahoo. Yahoo does a good job, and I also like yahoo. My point is it is patently rediculous to claim there is no other space on the internet that is close enough to Yahoo sports or finance.

Companies don't survive being ~10% better than the competition, and the stuff you are talking about sounds like it is moire about habit than anything tangible.

It's also going to get more difficult for Yahoo to differentiate itself as a curator/creator as it gets more difficult to survive on the Internet producing differentiated content.

Within sports, Grantland tried producing content that was different, and died. GigaOM tried focusing on enterprise tech, and died. FiveThirtyEight served policy wonks, and is struggling to attract a meaningful audience. The verdict is out on Vox, but they also may go within 18 months.

Yahoo has tried to solve this problem by hiring 'star names' but it doesn't seem to have moved the needle. People are happy to take the commodity churn article from Bleacher Report.

Oh, and to top all that off, it's unclear that there's really any serious money to be made from online content / eyeballs anyway.

Which is to say that even if they could execute on the 'trusted source of content' business model, it may not be enough to save them anyway.

> The finance sites are all drop in replacements and better than yahoo finance.

I completely disagree with that. I tried for over a year to switch from Yahoo to Google for finance and found it completely lacking, despite the nicer UI. The only site that can match Yahoo finance in my opinion is the Motley Fool. I still use both.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how people actually use the web today. "Portal" is an amazing video game and a 1990's buzzword.

Why would anyone rely on a single "portal" for content? A "portal" like Yahoo(!) was relevant when connections were slow and the potential of the internet was still nascent. That was 20 years ago.

These days, just open a new tab with a new site. Open 10 new tabs with 10 different sites. It's not that complicated.

Yahoo is the fifth most popular website in the world. People actually use it.

facebook is a portal. People spend a lot of time on facebook you may have noticed

>You want to me to go to 3 different sites for Finance when I can get everything at Yahoo! You want me to go to 4 different sites for Sports when I can get everything at Yahoo!

What? No. He/she meant that any of those sites can replace Yahoo by themselves, not that all of them are required.

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