7 ms·

This might be the first good move Yahoo has made since Mayer took over. I can't think of a better example of a company that needs to shed worthless baggage and

by smegel 11y ago

This might be the first good move Yahoo has made since Mayer took over. I can't think of a better example of a company that needs to shed worthless baggage and focus on high value propositions. And I am gobsmacked Yahoo has not at least made an attempt at a real social network. They have hundreds of millions of users, at the point they are in giving all their users an automatic account on Yahoo Social might be a dick move, but it's time start taking risks and see what unfolds.

seanp2k2 11y ago
That didn't work out so well for Google, and they were in a lot better position to make it work than Yahoo is.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  I'm not saying I agree with that move from a moral standpoint, but I'd bet money that Yahoo has a better chance of making it work. The demographics are different, there were enough tech-savvy people who understood Google's business model well enough to realize that co-opting people into a social network was going to give Google a scary amount of information. Yahoo isn't the behemoth that Google is, and I'm not sure that their audience is made up of people who understand that business model intimately enough to see the dangers.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Google never was 'social' in any way shape or form, Yahoo at least always was a portal and social has been a function in many portals historically speaking. Whether they could make it work is a different matter altogether, critical mass is a hard thing to force but Yahoo seems to be in a position to do at least that. Even so, I highly doubt anybody would anchor their little home on the web to a sinking ship. It's a bit late now. Right after Mayer took over they might have had a shot at a move like that.
skewart 11y ago
What would be the point of building a social network for Yahoo? Better engagement? I'm pretty sure they always have been a destination for much of their audience (as opposed to depending on social sharing to get eyeballs, like, say BuzzFeed). So I'm not sure they'd have a whole lot to gain from it. Of course, their audience probably will spend more and more time on social networks, so stemming that tide somehow might make sense. Rather than building out a full-scale social network like Google+ they might be better served by aiming for something like Reddit, or HN. There's enough sociability and gamification to make it an engaging destination, but it's not confusingly trying to reproduce a Facebook. Of course maybe this kind of lightweight social network is what you meant in the first place.
- smegel 11y ago
  > What would be the point of building a social network for Yahoo? Better engagement? Maybe just more engagement. People spend a hell of a lot of time on Facebook. I am thinking a social networking site like Facebook, combined with a mobile app that not only acts as a client to the social network, but also emulates the easy sharing features of instagram/snapshat/periscope. Something the younger generation will want to use all day. I mean, the hardest thing about building a social network is getting users. It is not as simple as "built it and they will come". Yahoo already has the users, to not leverage them seems crazy (or maybe I am). And in response to other comments about Tumblr...just no. Tumblr is not a social network, it is a bogging site, one of many. Facebook doesn't have a stand alone blogging site, and Google has left it's one to rot, there is probably a good reason for this.
  - henrikschroder 11y ago
    > the hardest thing about building a social network is getting users Going by the trainwreck that was Google+, I think you're completely wrong on this one.
    - taneq 11y ago
      Google+ was going great guns until they started forcing people to use real names everywhere. There's a big step between "building a social network" and "trying to own your users' real life identities".
    - skewart 11y ago
      I disagree. There's a big difference between "users" and active, engaged users. Google+ may have had a lot of users on paper, but relatively few people actually spent much time using it. The hard part about building a social network for a company like Google, or even Yahoo, isn't getting user accounts. It's making something that people actually want to use.
      - henrikschroder 11y ago
emidln 11y ago
Yahoo circa 2000 was a social network, with your yahoo account connecting messaging, chat, games, websites, and loads of other stuff.
- hga 11y ago
  It was a bunch of siloed social mini-networks who's only common factor was the account, and given its "media company" form, and who called the shots, I doubt there was ever a realistic prospect of connecting them into something combined and semi-coherent like Facebook.
  - emidln 11y ago
    That common factor enabled YCHT/YMSG which allowed for ad-hoc communication in and out of those silos. That friends list could chat, play sports, send emails, play chess, probably other things (those are all I did). It wasn't formal in that there wasn't an activity stream (as far as I remember; I didn't work there and I was like 13 at the time) in each silo, but people I met playing chess moved to chat and then to other games.
derefr 11y ago
They've already got Tumblr; they just need to... do something, anything at all with it, rather than just letting it sit there. Integrate Yahoo's various news properties into the feed, and vice-versa. Make all of the commenting on every Yahoo property into gradual-engagement reblogs on a Tumblr blog you're not even realizing you're creating as you're creating it. Etc.
- vidarh 11y ago
  Tumblr is tricky. Mess with it and they'd very quickly have a rapidly escalating campaign seeking peoples head on a stake. Tumblr users already regularly express deep suspicion or hate for Tumblr staff whenever they tweak some small aspect of the service. If they get it right,, I agree it could be a big deal, but the potential for totally destroying it by accident is great.
  - jrnichols 11y ago
    Many Tumblr users are still angry about what they saw as an attempt to get rid of all of the porn there too.
- stormbrew 11y ago
  This would be a disaster of epic proportions. Tumblr has a rabid user base that's not interested in any of that and would scream bloody murder if it happened.
  - derefr 11y ago
    Does that matter? Those users aren't paying. Yahoo could very well kick 9/10ths of Tumblr's userbase off the site while retooling to make a profit from the other 10%, and it wouldn't change a single thing about their financials. To put it another way: right now, Tumblr is making no money for Yahoo. Destroying the site and its reputation to make it into something profitable is actually the sensible move, compared to just leaving it alone. If they just wanted to leave it alone... why did they acquire it? To go even further, though, I don't think they need any of Tumblr's current userbase. When I said that "Yahoo has a social network: Tumblr", I wasn't referring to the userbase, but to the codebase and the built-up staffing with social-network-running expertise. They could throw out Tumblr-the-website, and transfer all the people working on it to a new, fresh-from-scratch social network project (maybe built on Tumblr-the-backend), and it'd still be a more sensible strategy than leaving it alone.
vidarh 11y ago
They tried with Yahoo 360 [1]. It flopped tremendously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_360%C2%B0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_360%C2%B0
1024core 11y ago
> And I am gobsmacked Yahoo has not at least made an attempt at a real social network. 3: Yahoo 360, Yahoo Kickstart and Yahoo Buzz.
- smegel 11y ago
  I mean since Mayer took over. > Yahoo 360 This sounds like it could have been something worthwhile, although it seems to have a focus on personal/website blogging rather than true social networking (focus on friend updates and sharing). And while it was apparently launched in 2005, it looks like it might have been developed in 1995 and put on hold for a decade.
  - 1024core 11y ago
    By 2012 (since she took over), Facebook had won the social war. And Yahoo had nothing of note to pull in the next generation (for whom FB bought IG).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
frozenport 11y ago
Yahoo fucked up Yahoo Answers (original SO) along with the comments section on their news. Both of these were social networks with millions of users.
wodenokoto 11y ago
They have made attempts at social network, with plans just the way you propose. They had a major backend overhaul called OpenSocial, that was supposed to bring social networking to Yahoo. I think the overhaul took 5 years and the way I understood, their plan was to start build outward facing social networking once OpenSocial was completed. When it was finally done, they had been through something like 2 CEO's and nothing came of it.

by smegel 11y ago

seanp2k2 11y ago

That didn't work out so well for Google, and they were in a lot better position to make it work than Yahoo is.

TrevorJ 11y ago
I'm not saying I agree with that move from a moral standpoint, but I'd bet money that Yahoo has a better chance of making it work. The demographics are different, there were enough tech-savvy people who understood Google's business model well enough to realize that co-opting people into a social network was going to give Google a scary amount of information. Yahoo isn't the behemoth that Google is, and I'm not sure that their audience is made up of people who understand that business model intimately enough to see the dangers.
jacquesm 11y ago
Google never was 'social' in any way shape or form, Yahoo at least always was a portal and social has been a function in many portals historically speaking. Whether they could make it work is a different matter altogether, critical mass is a hard thing to force but Yahoo seems to be in a position to do at least that. Even so, I highly doubt anybody would anchor their little home on the web to a sinking ship. It's a bit late now. Right after Mayer took over they might have had a shot at a move like that.

skewart 11y ago

What would be the point of building a social network for Yahoo? Better engagement? I'm pretty sure they always have been a destination for much of their audience (as opposed to depending on social sharing to get eyeballs, like, say BuzzFeed). So I'm not sure they'd have a whole lot to gain from it. Of course, their audience probably will spend more and more time on social networks, so stemming that tide somehow might make sense. Rather than building out a full-scale social network like Google+ they might be better served by aiming for something like Reddit, or HN. There's enough sociability and gamification to make it an engaging destination, but it's not confusingly trying to reproduce a Facebook. Of course maybe this kind of lightweight social network is what you meant in the first place.

smegel 11y ago
> What would be the point of building a social network for Yahoo? Better engagement? Maybe just more engagement. People spend a hell of a lot of time on Facebook. I am thinking a social networking site like Facebook, combined with a mobile app that not only acts as a client to the social network, but also emulates the easy sharing features of instagram/snapshat/periscope. Something the younger generation will want to use all day. I mean, the hardest thing about building a social network is getting users. It is not as simple as "built it and they will come". Yahoo already has the users, to not leverage them seems crazy (or maybe I am). And in response to other comments about Tumblr...just no. Tumblr is not a social network, it is a bogging site, one of many. Facebook doesn't have a stand alone blogging site, and Google has left it's one to rot, there is probably a good reason for this.
- henrikschroder 11y ago
  > the hardest thing about building a social network is getting users Going by the trainwreck that was Google+, I think you're completely wrong on this one.
  - taneq 11y ago
    Google+ was going great guns until they started forcing people to use real names everywhere. There's a big step between "building a social network" and "trying to own your users' real life identities".
  - skewart 11y ago
    I disagree. There's a big difference between "users" and active, engaged users. Google+ may have had a lot of users on paper, but relatively few people actually spent much time using it. The hard part about building a social network for a company like Google, or even Yahoo, isn't getting user accounts. It's making something that people actually want to use.
    - henrikschroder 11y ago

emidln 11y ago

Yahoo circa 2000 was a social network, with your yahoo account connecting messaging, chat, games, websites, and loads of other stuff.

hga 11y ago
It was a bunch of siloed social mini-networks who's only common factor was the account, and given its "media company" form, and who called the shots, I doubt there was ever a realistic prospect of connecting them into something combined and semi-coherent like Facebook.
- emidln 11y ago
  That common factor enabled YCHT/YMSG which allowed for ad-hoc communication in and out of those silos. That friends list could chat, play sports, send emails, play chess, probably other things (those are all I did). It wasn't formal in that there wasn't an activity stream (as far as I remember; I didn't work there and I was like 13 at the time) in each silo, but people I met playing chess moved to chat and then to other games.

derefr 11y ago

They've already got Tumblr; they just need to... do something, anything at all with it, rather than just letting it sit there. Integrate Yahoo's various news properties into the feed, and vice-versa. Make all of the commenting on every Yahoo property into gradual-engagement reblogs on a Tumblr blog you're not even realizing you're creating as you're creating it. Etc.

vidarh 11y ago
Tumblr is tricky. Mess with it and they'd very quickly have a rapidly escalating campaign seeking peoples head on a stake. Tumblr users already regularly express deep suspicion or hate for Tumblr staff whenever they tweak some small aspect of the service. If they get it right,, I agree it could be a big deal, but the potential for totally destroying it by accident is great.
- jrnichols 11y ago
  Many Tumblr users are still angry about what they saw as an attempt to get rid of all of the porn there too.
stormbrew 11y ago
This would be a disaster of epic proportions. Tumblr has a rabid user base that's not interested in any of that and would scream bloody murder if it happened.
- derefr 11y ago
  Does that matter? Those users aren't paying. Yahoo could very well kick 9/10ths of Tumblr's userbase off the site while retooling to make a profit from the other 10%, and it wouldn't change a single thing about their financials. To put it another way: right now, Tumblr is making no money for Yahoo. Destroying the site and its reputation to make it into something profitable is actually the sensible move, compared to just leaving it alone. If they just wanted to leave it alone... why did they acquire it? To go even further, though, I don't think they need any of Tumblr's current userbase. When I said that "Yahoo has a social network: Tumblr", I wasn't referring to the userbase, but to the codebase and the built-up staffing with social-network-running expertise. They could throw out Tumblr-the-website, and transfer all the people working on it to a new, fresh-from-scratch social network project (maybe built on Tumblr-the-backend), and it'd still be a more sensible strategy than leaving it alone.

vidarh 11y ago

They tried with Yahoo 360 [1]. It flopped tremendously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_360%C2%B0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_360%C2%B0

1024core 11y ago

> And I am gobsmacked Yahoo has not at least made an attempt at a real social network. 3: Yahoo 360, Yahoo Kickstart and Yahoo Buzz.

smegel 11y ago
I mean since Mayer took over. > Yahoo 360 This sounds like it could have been something worthwhile, although it seems to have a focus on personal/website blogging rather than true social networking (focus on friend updates and sharing). And while it was apparently launched in 2005, it looks like it might have been developed in 1995 and put on hold for a decade.
- 1024core 11y ago
  By 2012 (since she took over), Facebook had won the social war. And Yahoo had nothing of note to pull in the next generation (for whom FB bought IG).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

frozenport 11y ago

Yahoo fucked up Yahoo Answers (original SO) along with the comments section on their news. Both of these were social networks with millions of users.

wodenokoto 11y ago

They have made attempts at social network, with plans just the way you propose. They had a major backend overhaul called OpenSocial, that was supposed to bring social networking to Yahoo. I think the overhaul took 5 years and the way I understood, their plan was to start build outward facing social networking once OpenSocial was completed. When it was finally done, they had been through something like 2 CEO's and nothing came of it.