Yahoo tests social network component for Answers
88069
(InfoWorld) - Yahoo has started testing a social-network component for Yahoo Answers, a search engine in which people post questions and answers that have become a highly popular service for theÂ company. On Thursday, Yahoo Answers Network debuted as a beta service designed to let the 90 million users of this question-and-answer search engine create "personal networks" with each other. They can also invite acquaintances who don't use Yahoo Answers to join their network. People will be able to see if other members of their Yahoo Answers network have posted an answer or a question or flagged someone else's question as interesting, according to Yahoo. Yahoo plans to continue enhancing Yahoo Answers Network with features like the ability to block and ignore users and to import contacts from other services like the Yahoo Messenger instant messaging network. The move is consistent with Yahoo's aggressive strategy in social computing, a hallmark of the Web 2.0 era. In recent years, Yahoo has been busy acquiring social-computing companies like Flickr, del.icio.us, and, more recently, MyBlogLog as well as revamping existing sites and services with social features like tagging and user-generated content. Yahoo Answers is a bright spot for the company. Archrival Google had a competing service called Google Answers that never took off and was put out to pasture last year. In late December of last year, market researcher Hitwise Pty. reported that among Q&A-type search engines, Yahoo Answers held a 96 percent of share of visits in the U.S. Answerbag ranked second with 2.04 percent, and Microsoft's Windows Live Q&A came in third with 1.02 percent. By giving this new feature to Yahoo Answers, with its large and growing audience, Yahoo might be able to improve its standing in social networking. Its blogging and social networking-site Yahoo 360, introduced in March 2005, hasn't become as popular as Yahoo expected. In November at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo's vice president of product strategy, said the company might remake Yahoo 360, but the company hasn't rolled out any significant enhancements to it yet. Last year there were insistent rumors that Yahoo was shopping around for a social-networking site and that it held conversations with Facebook that didn't yield a deal. However, Yahoo has massive numbers of users in services like Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Mail, Flickr, del.icio.us and Yahoo Photos that some analysts have pointed out could be leveraged to create social networks. Yahoo Answers Network could indicate a strategy focused on creating distinct social networks within individual and already popular services, rather than on having a single social-networking site that competes head to head with the likes of MySpace.com, Friendster and Facebook. In fact, new social-networking providers are targeting their sites toward specific audiences and topics, instead of trying to cast a broad net like MySpace.com and the other leaders in this market. More information about Yahoo Answers Network can be found here.
288207
Scouring the web using Yahoo is set to become a lot more personal following the unveiling of the beta version of a host of new tools that allow users to search and save results just they way they want to.
371105
Yahoo Answers Opens in UK Yahoo has expanded its incredibly popular and successful social media reference offering, Yahoo Answers, into the UK today. Unlike traditional search, Yahoo Answers is based upon human generated answers to queries by its registered members. Stephen Taylor, head of search and search marketing at Yahoo! Europe, told The Guardian: &#8220;We do see [...]
627875
USAToday has added social media features which transform the site from less of a McNews page into a sticky community site which takes a page from Yahoo News and Topix.net. The new social features which USAToday has added include reader comments, avatars and profiles, along with photo uploads, story tagging and story recommendations. Steve Rubel of Micro [...]
23752
The Hive Mind Sees All Camping World Congress If you thought Facebook's Beacon ad program had FAIL written all over it, wait until you see what Yahoo! has in store for you.â¦
229754
A quirky new social-networking service called Mash lets you customize your friends' profiles. The Yahoo service, in public beta now, gives you the option to leave your profile open to your friends, who can choose glitter text for your page design, or add unicorns and kittens to your profile.
582461
MySpace has an impressive lead today, but things can change quickly in the fluid world of mass-market social networking sites. Just ask Friendster.
470282
360! take! two! Yahoo! has launched a new social networking site, its second such foray into the field.â¦
311249
As I said above I'm glued to the TV, but I'm also on Twitter, and blogging, and email, and IM and I'm subscribed to hundreds of RSS feeds, and I've been noticing that slowly the TV news organizations are integrating new Internet services with their TV offerings. They're all getting started, and eventually I'm pretty sure they'll be where Yahoo is now. The thing is, it works. For example, newmediajim is a cameraman for NBC News and he's on Twitter and sometimes I'm watching the other side of his camera on MSNBC and twittering with him before and after. A guy named creepsleepy is a radio guy in Manchester, interviewing presidential candidates, wouldn't it be great if I could listen to his interviews while he twitters his progress? Well, there's no doubt that soon we'll be doing that. We're finally really at the convergence so many have predicted for so long. With the help of a few members of the community Yahoo can get there first. BTW, I read on the NY Times site that Yahoo is going to open up more to developers. Hmmm. If you want to impress end-users and shareholders run it in MSM. If you want to get through to developers, use the developer blogs. Let us have the story first, otherwise you don't seem very serious about it.
192322
Here's a way to test your Web savvy: Have you  searched for the word Bebo?
527524
Sproose.com Social Search Engine Launches in Beta A new social search and personalization engine joined the mix today as Sproose.com has opened in Beta form. Sproose.com provides a peer-moderated ranking, prioritization and community networking solution for individuals and affinity groups, with a focus on utilizing user and group information to produce the most relevant results for [...]
585765
Yahoo! is kicking the tires of a new social job-networking website.
129296
Just going into beta, Yahoo's new social network, Mash, beats the stuffing out of its predecessor, Yahoo 360.
607489
Study exposes emerging tribes of social network sites
546634
This social networking disease is catching Yahoo! is in talks to buy Facebook, the social networking site for college- and schoolkids, the WSJ reports today.â¦
2938
Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is set to offer an online service that lets users view live US local traffic conditions on custom-created maps, the first
226402
Did MySpace beat out Yahoo! for page views?