Yahoo! races to the bottom

I got in the habit of using myYahoo as a personal portal some years ago - can't even remember when. For a while I've been aware that there are lots of better options out there but it's one of those things where you get used to the quirks and it seems like too much trouble to change. But it's finally gotten so annoying that I'm ready to look for a better alternative.

I'm really tolerant of adds in general, but I first got annoyed with the frenetic graphics dancing across the screen encouraging me to refinance my mortgage. At least that was on the weather page and not on the home page. But now, Yahoo has started selling video ads that drop down over the text of the page. When you go to myYahoo, the bar at the top (in the picture it's a Coldwell Banker ad) rolls down blocking the page while the video runs. This is just super annoying, worse than a popup.

I'm totally sympathetic to a company like Yahoo that tries to innovate and needs to sell advertising to survive, but they are driving away a long-time customer by going too far. It makes me wonder if they can survive without really rethinking their business model. Their biggest problem may not be Google but themselves. I can't believe anyone who works there would voluntarily put up with something so annoying.

I'll let you know what I end up using and what I learn along the way. Next stop Google.