Yahoo just launched a new version of their home page and while it looks almost identical to what I’ve been working with for several weeks - there was subtle differences.  I noticed many AJAX type of interactive elements on the homepage that enable you to change the way the Yahoo homepage looks and behaves - this is definately an improvement.

For one thing - you can select the color palate of the Yahoo home page - a very nice feature

I generally don’t read my Yahoo mail - so don’t send me any - and you can see it’s hot in NYC.  You can also include the left navigation in the Wide Layout or leave it out in the Narrow Layout.   The Navigation above also expands out when you hover over - hovering over Local gives  you local traffic problems in your area

The rest of the Yahoo home page behaves normally - I think most of the AJAX functionality was kept for the top and I think Yahoo has done a good job of making it easier to navigation through the wealth of information that is Yahoo.  According to TechCrunch

"The new home page has a significantly different layout than the current look, as well as some Ajax integration, DHTML and more personalization features. Other new features are discussed in a Yahoo blog post discussing the new home page on May 15, 2006. In that post, they call it “the most significant redesign of the www.yahoo.com home page ever”. Given that Yahoo is the larget site on the Internet (despite recent gains by Myspace), their embrace of new web technologies is an important evolution. Millions of people may have their first interaction with Ajax in the coming days."