AP report that Yahoo have finally announced plans to join the blogging and social networking game with Yahoo 360, a mix of tools to be released on March 29th that includes blogging, photo sharing and social networking.
Yahoo is testing the service with a small group of employees, some of whom have been working on the project since last year when the product was operating under the code name “Mingle.”
The service is designed to enable Yahoo’s 165 million registered users to pull content from the Web site’s discussion groups, online photo albums and review section to plug into their own Web logs, or blogs, the Internet shorthand used to describe online personal journals.
Yahoo also is making it easier for the service’s users to connect with others who share common interests and friends – a practice known as social networking. Participants can either choose to open their blogs to the entire world or restrict access to people invited through e-mail.
Meanwhile, Forrester’s Charlene Li talked to Yahoo about the service. Apparently she’s old mates with Julie Herendeen, VP of Network Products at Yahoo! Charlene adds a little more detail to the AP story saying that the new service will essentially comprise of three main components:
- Blogs for Yahoo! users. You’ll be able to control access to the blog by designing how can see which sections. Presumably, this
- The ability to add content from within the Yahoo! network to the personal space. This will primarily include Yahoo! Photos, but also any reviews you’ve written for local businesses, music/movie reviews, and Yahoo! Groups. This will eventually evolve to also include non-Yahoo! network content, presumably through RSS feeds (an extension of Yahoo!’s RSS service available today on MyYahoo!)
- Be able to see reviews from people within your “social network”. This would include music, movie, and even local business reviews, with the idea that you trust the reviews more from people that you know. It’s a little unclear at this point (I was being briefed right before getting on a flight) whether this feature will be available with the launch or in a later edition.
Maybe come March 29th we’ll finaly find out if rumours of a Fickr purchase are true or not as we find out exactly how photos fit into this mix…
Ok, where’s my damn invite then?
Nick Wilson is the publisher and founder of Threadwatch.org.
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