The site consists of a combination of Flickr photos, del.icio.us links, Yahoo MyWeb, Yahoo Games, and other Wii-related offerings. This is the first of many more Yahoo sites to come that will focus on niche content that revolves around a particular product or brand.
Finally, Yahoo! seems to be getting a clue on how to integrate its content into a unique and interactive web experience that its competitors, namely Google, just can’t rival.
The first thing about the Wii portal that jumped out at me was the volume of Del.icio.us and MyWeb articles about the Wii ranging from hardware, titles, gameplay and a whole myriad of other related stories.
Then, I noticed that the site is also tied in with Flickr, boasting an image library of 10,880 photos all related to Nintendo’s latest console offering. There is also an entire section of the site devoted to Yahoo! Answers featuring topics solely Wii-related in nature. There is also a message board for Wii enthusiasts to meet up and interact with one another.
So in essence, Yahoo! has created an entire portal driven almost solely by user-submitted content.
This is the kind of social media mashup that Yahoo! needs to focus on in order to stay relevant as an informational portal. Sure, Google may have the edge in search, but they can’t hold a candle to Yahoo! in terms of user services and the sheer volume of community content.
An interesting side note about the Wii portal is that Yahoo isn’t officially partnering with Nintendo in the venture. The bulk of advertising is coming from game manufacturers, and with the content being mostly user generated, it gives the community a unique authenticity that traditional console portals such as IGN just can’t quite seem to manufacture.
Yahoo! has not stated any official plans to launch similar portals for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3 consoles.
Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl
Joe is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.