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A lot of you keep asking what it is that Yahoo! does, which is a valid question, but you're forgetting about what they own and what they could do with their pro

by kyro 14y ago

A lot of you keep asking what it is that Yahoo! does, which is a valid question, but you're forgetting about what they own and what they could do with their properties. If there's one word that ties all of their more popular services together, it's "social". Tons of people still use Yahoo! Games, Y! Messenger, Flickr, Del.icio.us – all incredibly social communities. And Yahoo! Mail is still widely used. I think their issue is that they lack an underlying framework from which these services should be stemming. With proper structure and integration, they could really give Google and Facebook a run for their money. Google has been trying for ages to utilize their Gmail userbase to bolster their social plays, and it's worked with varying success. Yahoo! has both the email userbase and the social communities; they just need to find a way to tie the two together into a cohesive social platform.

michaelhoffman 14y ago
Sadly, they sold Delicious.
- kyro 14y ago
  Woops – news to me!
jaredsohn 14y ago
They have some social APIs which you might find interesting if you weren't aware of them: http://developer.yahoo.com/social/ http://developer.yahoo.com/social/
swivelmaster 14y ago
If only they knew what they had several years ago! They had IMO the biggest, most comprehensive 'profiles' service on the web, pre-Myspace/Facebook, and they blew it by wiping all profiles and migrating to Yahoo 360 (or whatever it was called), then called that off, wiped the profiles again, and have a new thing called 'Pulse' that nobody uses.
- inerte 14y ago
  Pulse was replaced. There's a newer Yahoo! Profile (I work close to the guys responsible for it).
saraid216 14y ago
> I think their issue is that they lack an underlying framework from which these services should be stemming This is actually what people mean when they ask "What does Yahoo! do?" When you ask that question of Google, for instance, you notice that all the technical branches can be relatively easily argued as coming back to search, and all the monetary branches come back to ads.
uptown 14y ago
The interesting one on that list (to me at least) is Flickr. Take the cue from Facebook's Instagram purchase - that photos are one of the critical elements of a mature social community that remains active after other elements have slowed. While Flickr is/was great, it's suffered from neglect. Check out this chart from 2011 showing the photo-library size of Flickr compared to Facebook ... and that was before Instagram happened (assuming that deal goes through), so I can only imagine how it would look today: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-19/tech/30174764_1_photos-facebook-1000memories http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-19/tech/30174764... Photos aren't just an island anymore ... not just something only uploaded when you plug in your camera. They're connected to everything else you're doing ... and your photo library is sourced from a variety of apps uploaded in real-time as you go about your day. To grow Flickr they either need to enhance the community (maybe in the way 500px has done) or transform it in a way that doesn't piss off the people that go there for professional-quality photos while at the same time carving out a space on the site to accept and leverage photos of what someone had for lunch.

by kyro 14y ago

michaelhoffman 14y ago

Sadly, they sold Delicious.

kyro 14y ago
Woops – news to me!

jaredsohn 14y ago

They have some social APIs which you might find interesting if you weren't aware of them: http://developer.yahoo.com/social/ http://developer.yahoo.com/social/

swivelmaster 14y ago

If only they knew what they had several years ago! They had IMO the biggest, most comprehensive 'profiles' service on the web, pre-Myspace/Facebook, and they blew it by wiping all profiles and migrating to Yahoo 360 (or whatever it was called), then called that off, wiped the profiles again, and have a new thing called 'Pulse' that nobody uses.

inerte 14y ago
Pulse was replaced. There's a newer Yahoo! Profile (I work close to the guys responsible for it).

saraid216 14y ago

> I think their issue is that they lack an underlying framework from which these services should be stemming This is actually what people mean when they ask "What does Yahoo! do?" When you ask that question of Google, for instance, you notice that all the technical branches can be relatively easily argued as coming back to search, and all the monetary branches come back to ads.

uptown 14y ago

The interesting one on that list (to me at least) is Flickr. Take the cue from Facebook's Instagram purchase - that photos are one of the critical elements of a mature social community that remains active after other elements have slowed. While Flickr is/was great, it's suffered from neglect. Check out this chart from 2011 showing the photo-library size of Flickr compared to Facebook ... and that was before Instagram happened (assuming that deal goes through), so I can only imagine how it would look today: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-19/tech/30174764_1_photos-facebook-1000memories http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-19/tech/30174764... Photos aren't just an island anymore ... not just something only uploaded when you plug in your camera. They're connected to everything else you're doing ... and your photo library is sourced from a variety of apps uploaded in real-time as you go about your day. To grow Flickr they either need to enhance the community (maybe in the way 500px has done) or transform it in a way that doesn't piss off the people that go there for professional-quality photos while at the same time carving out a space on the site to accept and leverage photos of what someone had for lunch.