There is not a single internet user in Vietnam that does
not know Yahoo, the leading online service provider in the world with free
diversified and attractive services. However, it seems that the service provider
has different attitudes to different markets and has been providing services
with different levels of quality to different clients.

No need to respect newly emerging market?

Yahoo began providing the services specifically designed for Vietnam’s market in
early 2000s. The pioneering service provider might have realized the great
potentials of a huge market with a population of 80 million. However, according
to VnMedia newspaper, some services for Vietnamese clients are not high quality,
services even though they are free of charge.

It is estimated that 98 percent of Vietnamese internet users (about 20 million
people) access the internet to read news. Especially, a significant number of
people access Yahoo regularly to read general news updates. However, the news
service by Yahoo Vietnam has been provided in a way which is completely below
the international standards and stature of the giant. Can it be true that Yahoo
has been deliberately forgetting to invest to develop news services, the basic
service which has been catching the attention of nearly all Vietnamese internet
users?

Presentation mistakes, design mistakes, and “automatic” mistakes

Also according to VnMedia, mistakes appear daily on all of Yahoo Vietnam’s
bulletins. The mistakes in presentation and the displayed links prove to be the
typical examples. While the biggest advantages of Internet bulletins are that
they allow readers to link to different news articles and search relating
stories, many bulletins of Yahoo Vietnam that quote Vietnamese big newspapers do
not show weblinks. In many cases, the news on Yahoo show links, but the links do
not exist, leaving readers dumbfounded when they cannot find the relating
stories. Meanwhile, the disorderly links at the end of original news articles
overshadow the often redundant phrases in the news articles.

VnMedia has cited some links as follows:

*http://vn.news.yahoo.com/tto/20101208/tpl-vu-buon-ban-ho-co-quan-chuc-nang-vao-ef16c59.html
*http://vn.news.yahoo.com/vne/20101209/ten-nhung-man-ot-lop-ngoan-muc-74fc0b1.html
*http://vn.news.yahoo.com/vne/20101125/tsc-100-hoc-phi-cho-7-truong-h-tai-anh-154962f.html
*

Mistakes of this kind appear every day on Yahoo
News in Vietnamese version which have not been corrected later. Besides, the
bulletins have been presented in a very careless way that does not follow any
coherent style. The content of the bulletins are not identical, while news
articles regularly have unrelated information or explanations that have not been
edited or put in the right order. The noteworthy thing is that this is the
chronic problem which has existed for a long time. However, there is no sign
showing that the service provider has realized the mistakes and it wants to
correct them.

As for choosy readers, the news on Yahoo News (Vietnamese version) is not high
quality. Especially, the news articles are considered as “want ads” rather than
articles. Meanwhile, the “ads” are always in advantageous positions on the home
page of the bulletins.

All the issues above cited prove to be contrary with the Yahoo News
(international version). Online all readers can witness the best things of the
“giant” Yahoo with multi-media language (not only text and normal images). As
such, Vietnamese people may feel offended because of the discriminatory
treatments.

Online service providers do not provide online services

It is not easy to find the columns “Tro giup” (help) and “Phan hoi” (feedback)
on Yahoo news from which people can seek support from the service providers. In
order to do that, you need to become very skillful internet user. Meanwhile,
Vietnamese clients cannot get online support and there is no hotline contact.
Meanwhile, even small e-commerce websites in Vietnam can provide support through
the hotlines, or through Yahoo Messenger – the instant message service provided
by Yahoo itself.

According to analysts, the problems can be settled very easily, especially for a
giant provider like Yahoo. The problem now is whether the service provider wants
to fix the problems and when it wants to do this.

Though Vietnam remains a small market which still cannot generate a high
turnover to the service provider, Vietnamese clients still want respect from the
giant service provider, because on the virtual market of the internet, everyone
wants to be equal to each other.

Source: VnMedia