A New Direction for Yahoo: Social Networking
April 8, 2009
Okay, Yahoo is a portal. Yahoo is a Web search company. Yahoo is a tools company. Yahoo is an advertising system. Now Yahoo is on the scent of social networking. Will this new direction, reported by Alexei Oreskovic here make a difference in the company’s fortunes? You will have to read the full text story “Yahoo to Beef Up Social Networking Features” to find out. The social networking buzz has been building. I recall doing a project for a large and somewhat confused company in 2003. The purpose of the project was to dig through Yahoo’s patents and technical papers for clues about the Yahooligans’ social network capabilities. There was not much to see. Now social networking is all the rage and Yahoo is ready to jump on the bandwagon. In my opinion the move is better late than never, but late is late.
Mr. Oreskovic wrote:
Developing the social transformation on a large scale won’t be easy, particularly given Yahoo’s spotty product development track record in recent years, analysts say, though Bartz’s recent internal management reorganization should help. Yahoo still needs to figure out how to turn on the new social features without triggering an avalanche of information onto its users, many of whom already receive frequent updates about their friends’ activities on services like Facebook and Twitter and may not necessarily want another such feed.
In my opinion, the digital opportunities permit quite a few players. Then one or two emerge as black holes that suck users and money into them. The secondary and tertiary players, in effect, go nowhere. The PR machines keep grinding which helps to some extent, but the big money goes to into those black holes. Right now, Yahoo is a red dwarf. If it becomes a black hole, it may remain a small one.
If Yahoo focused on search, I think there are a number of opportunities to do a better job making certain types of real time content more accessible. Who wants another Facebook.com page to manage? Not this goose.
Stephen Arnold, April 8, 2009
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