Ray’s Web 2.0 Business Minitests: Yahoo 360
November 15, 2006 |
About a year ago Yahoo! created Yahoo! 360 which lets you write your profile and blog, upload photos and network with others.
It is simple to join, once your have a Yahoo account and email address. This all takes about 10 minutes to complete and then you can search for other Yahoo! 360 users and ask them to join your network. Yahoo! has a simple user interface. The Yahoo! style takes some getting used to it. There are a number of small objects and pieces of text which you can click in order to fully view the possibilities. This is not the most user-friendly environment, Yahoo should do something about it for the sake of lesser-experienced users. Personally I never knew why Yahoo separated Yahoo! Groups from Yahoo! 360 which is more oriented towards personal profiling and blogging. Those services are much stronger in a joined environment than separately.
The best use for Yahoo! 360 seems to be to market your presence among other Yahoo! 360 users. Strangely enough, your blog and profile don’t get indexed very well by Yahoo, so it doesn’t give you much exposure to people who are searching, e.g. with the Yahoo toolbar.
One good and promising thing is that Yahoo! 360 is integrated in the Yahoo! IM (instant messenger), so that makes blogging very easy.
But does it make much business sense? To be honest, no, not yet that is.
Summary
I got a hunch that Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo! 360 will be merged in the not so far future. Yahoo as a company has huge resources and I don’t expect them to stay on the sideline while Myspace and others are making huge profits.
Its use is limited, but do add some groups to your profile and Yahoo account. The good thing is that you get the best online email service with it. We’ll just have to wait and see what it will develop into.
| Key-web 2.0 factor | Points (1-10) | Remarks |
| 1) Manage and view profile |
7 |
You can give a fair impression of yourself but I am missing the option to add video material |
| 2) Manage contacts |
5 |
Not very good, Yahoo! groups has better tools |
| 3) Communication options |
5 |
Just emails, limited IM integration |
| 4) Effective business use |
3 |
Nothing special yet, no services |
| 5) Growing potential |
8 |
Market-leader, where will the Yahoo billions go to…? |
| 6) Money making potential |
6 |
Depends on the insight of their staff if online services are integrated |
| Total |
34 |
Verdict: Limited use so far, potential? |
Got any ideas for tests or do you want strategic / consulting advise? Have a look at my profile Regards, Ray
