First they scrapped Geocities and 360 the fore-fathers of social media. I grew up around these services and it was really a sad day when Yahoo asked us to take down the geocities pages. I think it is not long before Yahoo communities will be buried for good. All Yahoo will have to say is they wanted to concentrate on the core expertise and only they know what it is.
Jim Stoneham, VP of Communities for Yahoo!, today posted on their corporate blog that they would “open the door between two of the Internet’s largest online communities” next year. This is actually a sweet way of saying ‘our social side is stinky and since Facebook is doing well, we are outsourcing the job to them. Of course, technology is not our forte’. Search got so tough that they sold out that division to Microsoft. But unlike Bing deal yahoo won’t be enjoying the revenue from Facebook without having to bear the pains of maintaining a world class social network.
Yahoo is going to ‘deeply integrate’ Facebook Connect across their properties from 2010. So all your yahoo updates will be available in your Facebook network. So whenever you add an image, rate/comment articles and add friends you will have an option to share it with your Facebook network.
Is yahoo hoping to get traffic to its content and communities by gaining wide coverage on Facebook? They say it is to heighten user’s internet experience. Whatever way you put it Sir, the world will see it as a meek retreat from the competition. Facebook currently has 350 plus user base while Yahoo commands around half a billion unique monthly visitors. Most of the users still use yahoo for Mail and messenger services.
