Yahoo is pushing new social networking features in its mail service. A bunch of apps has been added which enable sending invites, attaching larger files etc. Users are being prompted to see updates from friends and also the famous 140 characters “What are you doing right now?” box appears on the top.
A welcome note says that there will be lesser ads now but contrary to that the ad space is wider now. The changes are making the new Yahoo Mail look like ‘a social network with e-mail also‘.
Yahoo’s social networking effort isn’t going anywhere -mash/spotm shutdown within a year of launch and some of the emerging markets team are playing with twitter clone now (i.e. Yahoo meme).
A Look at your most active social network?
Depending on who you are and your online preferences, one’s most active and intimate social network is either your mobile contact book or your email contact book.
Yahoo Mail’s new ‘understanding’ of social network stems from it’s past failure and realization that one can’t create ‘new’ social networks without creating a newer way of consumption (e.g. Twitter’s success in the presence of existing socionets like Facebook and MySpace.)
So do you think this new move from Yahoo will gain traction? Will you ditch FaceBook for another social network? Or will this move add unnecessary clutter and threaten the acceptance of mail service as well?
Your take? Have you tried it yet?
Note to Yahoo
- You have the world’s most active social network – Yahoo groups. How about reviving that?
- How about fixing your email spam algorithm (Gmail beats you hands down), instead of adding tons of features?
[Naman is a startup enthusiast and has worked with couple of Indian startups as Product Manager. He writes at The Inspire Blog]
Bleh. u folks seem to be asleep all this while. These features have been around for quite some time now. Wakie Wakie
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I think it is too little too late. Take Yahoo’s chat service on mail for e.g. – it is so cumbersome. Every time you change screens, the earlier conversation disappears. All very clunky and more to do with how yahoo does things than what users need/want.
Haven’t used my Y! mail for a long time, let alone use their ‘recent feature’.
Quite agree with @apu — it’s a bit late, mate.
Yahoo always had features. But for instance messenger was an individual app. I stop using yahoo mail and logged back on and people started instant messaging me. Yes, it caught me off guard. I think technology is moving so fast we dont really know what we want. No spam sounds good. Give the ppl what they need! Few spam please. And as far as yahoo making adjustments , what happened to yahoo briefcase? that was a neat feature that maybe should be re-implemented