It looks like Yahoo! is set to launch a new blogging tool within the next month. Yahoo! 360° will initialy be made available to a restricted number of users from March 29th, having extensively tested the product in-house since last year. The new service will bring together Yahoo!'s existing services like IM Messaging, photo albums, local search and groups. The service is being touted as a 'Web log and social networking' service. Julie Herendeen, vice president for network services at Yahoo!, had this to say about the service:
"It's really about keeping connected to people you know," she said. "Yahoo 360
allows consumers to conveniently connect with the people they care
about by creating and sharing blogs, photos and other content across
Yahoo."
Herendeen said Yahoo had no immediate plans to add advertising to
the service. Given the number of people who have Yahoo! accounts - 165 million - the company could bring blogging to a far wider audience. At present, though, it is unclear whether they will be pitching the product at the 'teen' market or at older users. Here is Michael Liedtke's take on it in the E-commerce Times:
Expanding into social networking and blogging marks another
significant step in Yahoo's push to make its Web site even more
essential to the personal and professional pursuits of its users.The service is also meant to encourage Yahoo's most frequent
visitors to create and share more content, a process the company hopes
will attract even more people to its site. If it can increase its
audience's size and give visitors more reasons to stick around longer,
Yahoo would become an even more attractive marketing vehicle for
advertisers.
If you'd like to take part in the public beta test, fill in the Yahoo 360°beta test form.
Related Web Articles
Yahoo Tests Blend of Blogging, Networking (E-Commerce News)
Yahoo 360 takes spin through blogosphere (CNET)
Yahoo Gets Social (Red Herring)
Yahoo Finaly Hits Blog Scene (Internet News)
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