I.T. Vibe - Yahoo blends blogging and social networking

Yahoo announced on Wednesay that they are to introduce a new service that blends several of its Web site's popular features with two of the Internet's fastest growing activities; blogging and social networking.

The innovative service - called Yahoo 360 - will soon start on an invitation-only basis of its new Web log and social networking service which aims to better connect users to people they already know.

The test release will mark the first time that Yahoo provides a service to create and share blogs (Web logs) in the US. (They already offer some tools in Asia).

The service will not be available until 29th March and the free test will blend Yahoo's existing products such as Yahoo Messenger, photos, local search, music and groups with new offerings such as blogs, mobile blogs and sharing tools for recommending movies, restaurants and other items.

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 blogs.

Yahoo also is making it easier for users to connect with others who share common interests and friends - a practice known as social networking. Participants can to either publish their blogs to all and sundry or only to those whom they wish to share with.

Google bought Blogger creator Pyra Labs in early 2003. The Web search company also has runs an affiliated social networking service called Orkut.

We feel that blogs are great inexpensive way for the ordinary non-technical user to share their thoughts, ideas and news, however as with most things on the net one may have to trawl through a lot of rubbish to find something useful.

Reader Comments: 0