Submitted by Ian Lamont05.27.2009
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Yahoo announces a major social networking service, acquisition, or partnership by December 1?
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Betting closes in 6 days 13 hours
This year's All Things Digital conference featured a fascinating on-stage interview of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz by Kara Swisher. Besides delving into Bartz's short history at the company, the talk also covered some potential strategic moves. According to AllThingsD's account, Bartz said Yahoo was "very interested in social."
Of course, this is not the first time Yahoo has talked about big social networking plans. But what makes this different is Bartz's drive to execute quickly and decisively on reforming the company, and her stated desire to turn Yahoo into users' "home on the Web."
Prediction: Before December 1, Yahoo will announce plans to create a new social networking service, acquire an external social network, or partner with another social networking company. Criteria: The service will not be an expansion of Yahoo 360 -- it will be branded differently. The service must also be targeted at Yahoo's entire U.S. userbase (and possibly international users, too) not just a subset of users, such as business users. There must be an official announcement from Yahoo or another company involved with the product, or it must be revealed by a named Yahoo executive in a media interview or article.
Image: Yahoo
Current Community Consensus 16%
Prediction Statistics
| Betting Closes: | Nov 27 2009 | Current Consensus: | 16.11% | Total Bets: | 30 |
| Today's Change: | 0% | ||||
| Life Time High: | 50.00% | ||||
| Life Time Low: | 16.11% |
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Comments
Two pieces of information to add about this:
Yahoo shutting Yahoo 360 soon:
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-yahoo-says-it-will-close-yahoo-360-...
Yahoo looking to make social media buy:
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-yahoo-is-looking-to-buy-a-social-ne...
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
twitter.com/ilamont
Doesn't Yahoo! Meme count?
http://meme.yahoo.com/home/
WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR200909...
Looks like a microblogging service along the lines of Twitter.
But, I am curious to see what kinds of social networking features are enabled, and become features in their own right (as opposed to something that's merely complementing the microblogging focus). If it goes beyond Twitter-style friending, I'd be willing to consider Meme as a social network and thus meeting the criteria for a successful judgment.
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
twitter.com/the_standard
Yahoo is kicking off a huge advertising campaign next week. From the corporate blog-
"We want you to make the Web your own and are designing products to put you in the driver’s seat of your Internet experience."
"...we will deliver awesome new experiences and continue to push the frontiers of science and technology to invent Web products and services that will dazzle you for years to come."
http://ycorpblog.com/2009/09/22/under-new-management-yours/
Yahoo fairly recent acquisition of Maktoob (Arab Social Media) does not meet the judgment criteria of targeting US userbase.
Related: It's not just a Facebook world:
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/10/21/outside-u-s-alternate-social-...
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
twitter.com/the_standard
twitter.com/ilamont
Has anyone seen Yahoo launch anything in the last year. As far as I'm concern, Yahoo likes to sell or drop services such as Geocities. I've always believed Yahoo lost their boat with Google... and have been crying ever since.
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