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On Yahoo!'s Acquisitions

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the buying-up-the-web dept.

Barry Norton writes "The Guardian has quite an insightful article about recent Yahoo acquisitions Delicious and Flickr. They quote Joshua Schachter, Delicious' creator: 'We're excited to be working with the Yahoo search team - they definitely get social systems and their potential to change the web. We're also excited to be joining our fraternal twin, Flickr!' And why Yahoo's interest? The article opines: 'It takes a lot of the hard work out of searching the web. The very clever thing about social software is that it puts the burden on to the user, not the provider.'"

3 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. wrong idea about Social Networks and search by ChrisGilliard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It takes a lot of the hard work out of searching the web. The very clever thing about social software is that it puts the burden on to the user, not the provider.

    If this is how Yahoo sees it, they're missing the point. Yahoo (and other web-portals) can use Social Networks to learn more about their users. For instance, a certain social circle may all be members of a bowling league, so maybe show bowling ball advertisers to people that have a direct connection with the bowling league circle. The connection I see is more in delivering more appropriate content to users, not saving money on search.

    --
    No Sigs!
  2. PR...! by mister_llah · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What you see there is the Public Relations Friendly(tm) version of the advertising plan you speak of...

    When making a statement about such an acquisition, you don't say "The very clever thing about social software is that we can sell advertising at higher rates because we can tailor the ads to the market and promise more responsive viewing."

    It's not that they are missing the point, it's that it doesn't sound very good to come out and say something that sounds so self-centered.

    --
    MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
    http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
  3. Re:Yahoogle by tjr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed, Google didn't invent any of those things, but they sure made them better. Substantially better, in some cases. Google is known for having a lot of scientists on staff, and they likely do a lot of original CS research to make things better, but they also must have a lot of really good HCI people who know how to design interfaces, and a lot of really good engineers who know how to actually build usable software.