Bethany, Douglas, Rebecca, & Anthony: Gender and MyYahoo!

If you go to My.Yahoo! as a guest today, you'll see a yellow highlighted section near the top, with the text "Bethany, Douglas, Rebecca & Anthony have cool My Yahoo! pages – check ‘em out!"

It looks like this:



Clicking on "check 'em out!" takes you to examples of MyYahoo! pages for the two ladies and two men, with accompanying video and audio of each. The men appear to be successful businessmen, and have serious MyYahoo! portals. Doug is a mid-40ish asian male in a golf outfit, and has a golf-related setup, but also has BBC News/Front Page for his headlines, and Stock Portfolios and the Market Summary on his left sidebar. One presumes he's either retired or a golf pro. Anthony comes across as a young asshole suit. He introduces himself with "Welcome to a business jock's home page." He holds a PDA in his hand, and on his page, we find Stock Portfolios, the Market Summary, and headlines from the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, and Forbes.

Then we have the ladies. Bethany, a young headphone-clad hottie, says "I'm a lover, not a dancer, but I do love to dance." Her page is pink and purplefied. Her headlines? E! Online Celebrity News, opening movies, and movie showtimes. She declares, "Take out the celebrity names, and Entertainment News has the same drama as my friends' e-mails." The other woman, thirty-something Rebecca, has headlines from Children's Health (which has the headline, "poop experts (chronic constipation in 7 year old?)," iVillage, and Blogging Baby. Her right sidebar has the Epicurious Recipe of the Day (the "My Kind of Chocolate Birthday Cake"). In her inbox, she has messages with the subject lines "Snacks for Thursday" and "Carpool Schedule."

The men: successful professionals. The ladies: dependents and entertainment news junkies.

You've come a long way, baby.

Click here to check out the promotion yourself.