It's not really about the design though. They (Yahoo) are trying to connect with people and get them engaged.
This is similar to the "design a bracket for a jet engine in 3D" campaign that GE ran - that resulted in absolutely horrible contest entries from people who do not understand materials/stress/strain/vibration... but looking visually appealing to a non-techie. I am sure GE had no intention of even considering any of those "designs" for anything other than pure entertainment.
Right, but I think that most people can see right through the "look guys, we're cool! we care!" crap when it's this tacky and confusing. Quite frankly I thought they would be way more outlandish and unusable in the context of being a logo simply because of the name and the whimsicality of the current iteration. Downloading a bunch of type from Dafont does not a good logo or even fake contest make.
This is similar to the "design a bracket for a jet engine in 3D" campaign that GE ran - that resulted in absolutely horrible contest entries from people who do not understand materials/stress/strain/vibration... but looking visually appealing to a non-techie. I am sure GE had no intention of even considering any of those "designs" for anything other than pure entertainment.