Yahoo Uses New Homepage to Push Search Adoption

Yahoo went live with it’s new homepage today, and when I went to check it out with my Firefox browser, this is what I found:


Yahoo clearly saw an opportunity with its tremendous homepage reach to leverage its strong portal brand to try to change users’ default searching habits. Interestingly, the pitch is not “use Yahoo search because it works better,” but rather “use it because it’s Yahoo.”

I use the Firefox search box many times a day, but mine is still set on Google — if I change it, I’d be much more inclined to check out the buzz around Ask.com.

I wonder what other users will do — can people still be swayed by brand affinities that have nothing to do with the feature in question? Or will people stick with what they think works best?