MarketingVOX: Yahoo has overhauled its homepage - which hadn't been redone since September 2004 - in a bid to remain the most popular online destination and attract more advertising, writes the Associated Press. The redesign increases interactivity, reducing the need to click through to other pages to, say, review the weather, check email or listen to music. The upgrade comes as Yahoo faces challenges not only from perennial rivals MSN and AOL but also social networking sites such as MySpace.

Though the move was long overdue and the redesigned Yahoo site is now "clean, crisp and modern," according to Jupiter Research analyst David Card, it won't impress the younger online crowd, he says. "They (Yahoo) didn't really push the envelope very hard."

But, aware that most users tend not to like sudden change, Yahoo tested the final redesign, code-named "Spirit," for several months with selected users. And it won't show up as the default page for several months yet.