Got in last night to Chicago, so I didn't have a chance to blog yesterday. Thursday morning I was at Yahoo! seeing a preview of their new Yahoo! 360 service and participated in a feedback and discussion session. Since Tony is friends with Jerry, I got to tag along since I cover the blogging and social network space for AlwaysOn. I was in the session with Danah, who already posted on her thoughts. I also wasn't going to post the screenshots of Yahoo! 360, but since Forrester's Charlene Li already did I decided to go ahead and do it (cropped and resized in photoshop):
Yahoo! 360 screenshots
I'm writing more of my thoughts in my column for next Thursday, but I can say I believe the service will be successful for three primary reasons:
- Yahoo!'s huge installed base of users
- Integration of photo sharing (i.e. Flickr)
- Advanced privacy controls
The last two are based on what I know as the top two driving factors for CyWorld's incredible growth in Korea, which I touched upon here. The Yahoo! team has done of good job of thinking through this service and how it fits into the greater blogosphere.
UPDATE: I didn't really read Charlene's post until after my initial post, but have to disagree with her statement here:
This fundamental concept of linking people through their updated “stuff” is what makes Yahoo! 360 unique – and inherently will drive usage of the service higher than traditional social networks.
I assume she hasn't tried Microsoft's Wallop since the first thing I thought when I saw the "Latest from My Friends" section was, "They must of saw Wallop... Definitely from Wallop." Also I don't believe this "fundamental concept" will be a driver for usage. I haven't spoken with the Microsoft Research people on Wallop's usage patterns or survey of key features, but I have to assume this is not and will not be a primary driver or feature that people love on Yahoo! 360.
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