Yahoo! says it's changing iconic purple logo

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- One of the longest running images on the internet, the iconic Yahoo! logo, might not be too long for this world. The company says times are changing, and so will its logo.

Which one will it be? Yahoo! posted a video on YouTube, announcing they'll take on a new logo every day for the next month before revealing their permanent new look in September.

It's the latest move by new CEO Marissa Mayer, who took over a year ago, and began making changes, acquiring startups, hiring new talent, and forcing employees to come to the office instead of working from home.

"She's certainly the most effective CEO that that company has had in probably 10 years," said Dylan Tweney, executive editor at VentureBeat.

Tweney recalls when Yahoo! first came out in 1994, when no one had ever heard of a search engine.

ABC7 News reporter David Louie described it this way, "It's a kind of 411 directory service for people to find interesting sources of information on the internet."

The founders were in their 20's. But by 1996, they'd created the iconic logo that's been the company's brand ever since -- from the Yahoo! home page to a giant neon billboard over the freeway.

Unchanged for nearly 17 years, the logo's beginning to show its age, if you ask Mary Scott, the head of the Academy of Art's design school.

"Oh it feels a little state fair-ish right now," she said. "It feels a little corny, and I think that's probably gonna be getting away from."

But Scott says Yahoo! has to be careful. She says a new logo should keep key elements. In this case the purple, the exclamation point, the playful feel.

"You cannot alienate your loyal customers," Scott said. "That's how you lose, you lose your brand."

Loyal users watching the video weren't shocked by the new designs. One thought it was time for a change.

But Tweney says that change has to be reflected on the inside if Yahoo! wants to reclaim its place as an innovative superpower.

"You don't get to be a technology company by having a logo, no matter how fresh it looks," he said.

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sunnyvale, yahoo, marissa mayer, youtube, websites, internet, business, jonathan bloom

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