First look at Yahoo! 360

By Charlene Li

I got a detailed walkthrough of Yahoo! 360 this afternoon, and I have to say, the Yahoo! team has done an excellent job thinking through key details of how to not only integrate blogs and social networking, but also how to pull in elements from the Yahoo! network. I’ve included a two screenshots that they shared with me for public distribution. (And if you’re a Forrester client, click here to see how I envisioned Yahoo! would incorporate social networking and blogs into their service a year ago – it’s pretty close to what their vision is).

Central to the whole service is the concept that you want to communicate and connect with the people that you already know, rather than try to meet new people. To this end, your home page on the service shows the most recent content published by people within your network. This might be a blog post, a photo album, review, or an updated profile item. This page is constantly refreshed as the people in your network update the information on their spaces. This fundamental concept of linking people through their updated “stuff” is what makes Yahoo! 360 unique – and inherently will drive usage of the service higher than traditional social networks. In essence, the content is being pushed to you by the service.

The profile page contains the usual features from social networking sites friends, profile, lists of things you like to do, where you work/went to school, and groups that you belong to on Yahoo! Groups. But it also excerpts content you’ve created that you want to share with your network. This includes not only a blog, but also photos from Yahoo! photos, reviews created on Yahoo! Local, and LAUNCHcast Stations. Its similar to what MSN Spaces has, where users can add content from MSN Photos and MSN Music (Click here to see more on MSN Spaces.)

Also similar to MSN Spaces, as well as Lycos’ Circle product is the ability to set privacy controls for different pieces of content. I can decide to share a specific album with, say, my work friends and another album with only family. At the time of the beta launch, the privacy controls for the blog will be for the entire blog, but Yahoo! said that a top priority is to add privacy controls at the post level.

The blogging tool itself is pretty basic. It allows the insertion of photos, comments, and trackbacks. You can control who can post comments, again through your pre-set groups. Only photos are supported, but Yahoo plans to offer the attachment of other file types soon after beta launch.

One very nice feature was the invitation process itself. Y! 360 integrates with address books on Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Address Book – you can go in and select the people you want to send an invite to. They will add the ability to invite contacts from within Microsoft Outlook soon after launch (are you beginning to see a trend here?). The email invite itself was very nice – it sends a very brief profile of you the photos from your profile and a link to a preview your page. This gives the user an idea of who is inviting them and what the service can provide.

The ability to leverage your network to get something done is what gives Y! 360 the real potential to become something even bigger. At the beta launch, users will have the ability to look narrow local business reviews by their network – a rec’d from someone I know counts for a lot more. Of course, this assumes that people will start creating reviews (a clever way for Y! Local to jumpstart reviews on the service). In the future, I can imagine new modules for job searching, dating, travel planning (“What hotel in Paris would you recommend?”), car buying…the list is extensive. Yahoo!’s (as well as MSN’s and AOL’s) advantage is being a one stop shop in terms of leveraging your network’s knowledge across multiple categories.

The service will be made available to a “select group of beta testers” on the morning of March 29th. Those beta testers will be allowed to invite as many people as they would like – no limits are being set. One thing about the beta – it appears that Yahoo! has a detailed roadmap of improvements that they plan to make to the service, with several becoming available after the beta launch date. Gasp! A real beta! So I’m expecting a lot of glitches, changes, and general growing pains…but I’m setting aside a couple of hours already on Tuesday to get my 360 service up and going.

Comments

[Dawn Rayneir]

Yahoo 360 is basically a copy of Multiply.

[Jeff Clark]

This seems very cool. Sounds very promising if people actually use it!

Whose arm do we have to twist to get an invite for it?

[Jeff Clark]

This seems very cool. It's like a portal+My Yahoo. Sounds very promising if people actually use it!

Whose arm do we have to twist to get an invite for it?

[mark pincus]

hey charlene,

i'd love to hear what yahoo is doing that's substantially different from what's already out there. you can see a preview of tribe's upcoming release of our open profiles which will let users aggregate disparate web data from their blogs to amazon wish lists. i welcome yahoo's entry as offering an 'open' system for hosting profiles and blogs as it will add to the peopleweb.

here is a (long) link to our open profile preview.

http://sanfrancisco.tribe.net/template/pub%2Coc%2CPeopleCard.vm?personid=5ec3728d-a130-48a9-a6fe-f1380778cc76&r=10535

best,

mark

[David W. Quinn]

I can't wait. I want my invite now. :)

[n]

Mark,
If there was an easy way to carry my tribe.net profile across the y! properties, i would consider using your app but the fact is i can now post in Y! groups, investor boards, YIM, using a consistent profile across all these properties - that's power. In terms of features, I don't think 360 is much different than tribe.net, spaces, yelp, or orkut but then it doesn't need to be since 165 mm reg. users is clearly a differentiator. tribe.net and yelp's biggest advantage is size - smaller teams can sometimes innovate much faster than multi-billion organizations...good luck!

[googoz]

I will feel sooooo appreciated if I could get a invitation from you. Thanks.

[luke boardman]

sounds exciting. would be so delighted if you would please invite me! thanks alot!

[James Currier]

Charlene,
It's good Yahoo is finally getting more into the social software space, and it will give everyone a reason to talk about it more. But there are already two services that have been focusing on the "who you already know" strong ties, not the weak ones like social networking, multiply, craig's list, etc. These sites are www.ringo.com and www.bebo.com. Much of the orientation, features, and certainly much of the language 360 is using is derivative of those two sites. Both those services already have millions of users and aren't insignificant.

James

[Ajay]

Thanks for the nice review. I am a Yahoo loyalist. Was hoping for something like this from Yahoo. Anyway, I have to wai until the product is released. It'd be very interesting to see, how this one matches up to blogger.com I have my own domain and host my blog there. MSN spaces does not provide that feature of storing the files in your own domain. Hope yahoo has that feature. Also I feel audioblog is a very powerful feature of blogger.com. Yahoo needs to incorporate something like this to compete with Google.

[googoz]

I will feel sooooo appreciated if I could get a Y!360 invitation from you. Thanks you very much!

[cyberwiz]

hey i would love to try this service so could u please send me an invite
thanks

[tinrobot]

Looks like they're seriously ripping off Tribe.net for ideas.

[Ryan]

Hi,
I have been eagerly waiting for this service from the day the site was launched. Please can you e-mail an invite to ryguy2008@hotmail.com .

Thanks,
Ryan

[Alan]

Hello,

I've been waiting to try this service for whole life. Anyone can send me an invitation to: alan888@stopathere.com is highly appreciated. Thanks!!!!

[xiaolong]

please give me a invite,thank you very much!!

[Adam]

Hay if anyone has a spare invite pls email it to me thanks this yahoo 360 looks great :)

[meme]

Hay if you have any spare invite,I will be really thankful if you can send one. Thanks in advance.

[SHA]

Hi.If you have any invites left please send me one.Thanks.

P.S
If anyone else reading this has one left then please send one.Thanks

[Michiel]

If you have any spare invite, I will be delighted if you can send one. Already thanks

Michiel

[Mandy]

One thing that really holds Yahoo back from playing with the big boys is the fact that they are censoring what pictures you post and links. We have to wonder if they plan to also censor what people post in their blogs? If they do plan to keep on censoring I don't see them being major players in the blog wars.

[Bruce Hartley]

I would also love to get an invite.

[Paiva]

I would also love to get an invite too hehehe...

lap_darkloud@yahoo.com.br

PLEASEEEEEE PLEASE PLEASE

[sharjeel]

Pls send me an invitation for yahoo 360 plsss

Thanks in Advance

sharjeel.7207951@bloglines.com

[Tabby]

Please give me a Yahoo! 360° invitation.
jennylu@email.com
Thanks a lot.

[Kiruthik]

if anyone need 360 invitation let me know....
or
visit http://360.yahoo.com/nkiruthikkumar

[palstud]

can u please invite me to 360?

thanks

[Dr. Subrahmanyam Karuturi]

hai,

Please send me an invitation to Yahoo 360.
My email harrison@consultdoctor.net

Thank you.

regards,
Dr. Subrahmanyam Karuturi

[Jason]

Nice review! Please send me an invite to Yahoo 360. Thanks again for the great review.

[Onnie]

Hi I read about this in todays paper, I came on line too see what it was like, I seen your site you have a great mind liked alot of your posts, Well if there is a way would you consider sending me and invitation?
Thanks so much, Please let me know either way reply to me when you can!
Sincerely grateful, Onnie

[eama]

Please send me an invitation to Yahoo 360.
My email ziippoo@gmail.com
Thank you.

[Justin]

Hello, I also would like to get an invitation to yaho 360. I would like to write the review about it in my native language, copying and translating others review is not an appropriate way. I would be wery grateful :)

[Justin]

Oops, forgot to write my email, woodooglide@gmail.com :)

[Anand]

Please send me an invitation to Yahoo 360

[Anand]

My email id : anandtgee@yahoo.com

[JPatel]

I'd like an invitation

jaypatel1@yahoo

[Nishanth]

Hi Im very much interested in setting up a tech blog... can u please send me an invitation to yahoo 360....

I need it very badly. it wud help a lot... Thanks

My e-mail: callnishanth@yahoo.com

[Vikas Jha]

Please send me an invitation to Yahoo 360.
My email vikasdbg@hotmail.com
Thank you.

[Will]

Hi, if anyone doesn't mind, I would like an invitation. I'm very interested in where this area of technology and human interaction is headed. Thanks.

[vieboi]

Can I have an Yahoo 360 invitaion, plzzz. I would appreciate.

My email: vieboi@gmail.com

[vieboi]

Can I have a Yahoo 360 invitaion, plzzz. I would appreciate.

My email: vieboi@gmail.com

[Chris Wine]

hoose “Write a Review”, and I immediately went to Yahoo! Local. I could then search for the local service (the kitchen) that I was interested in talking about, and post my review. My review is now associated with the restaurant's name, address, phone number, and other people's reviews. So I was just messing around; posted a review and saved it by accident. I could not go back and update my review. Rats. Still this is a compelling service. Watch out Zagat’s.

Local Reviews benefits me it becomes simple for my opinion to be heard about a local service. Yahoo benefits because they can now harvest all of these reviews, and build the best restaurant directory on the planet.

Now things like Local Reviews might place companies like Six Apart at a disadvantage. Six Apart, or others like them, may not have the resources to replicate Google Local or Yahoo Local. So some CMS packages may end up with a whole in the feature matrix that will be difficult to fill.

[sanjaykattimani]

Now checkout my review of yahoo 360 degree My review of yahoo 360 degree at http://sanjaykattimani.blogspot.com

[Jera]

Very nice site!

[henry]

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