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Yahoo has cut deals lately with Saturday Night Live, Comedy Central and others in an effort to challenge media streaming kings such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. It is also making more of its own original series. The new Yahoo Screen app for iOS attempts to package for portables all of this exclusive content along with video from Conde Nast Entertainment (featuring Vogue, Wired, and GQ videos) and Martha Stewart Living. The results follow Yahoo's usual pattern in mobile-a solid feature or two packed within other questionable design moves.
The interface lets users scroll branded video sources on the left nav space which snaps into place rows of branded video. Swiping left or right within a video moves users to another video within the brand channel; up and down moves to the next channel. It is intended to mimic the channel surfing experience.
However, it more closely resembles the slot-machine experience-not in a good way. The left nav channels rely on icons rather than labels, and they can be inscrutable. On an...