The news that Yahoo has brought out a Beta social networking site called Mash dropped a few days ago. Mash is coming up against some extremely stiff competition in the form of MySpace and Facebook. The odds against a startup taking on the two biggest names in social networking would be almost insurmountable. Yahoo, however, has a few aces up its sleeve that virtually guarantee its success.
Yahoo has the platform to build the dominant social network. It has an established client base with Yahoo Groups. The chat rooms of Yahoo Messenger are brimming with potential users as well. POP mail facilities are second to none, with unlimited storage and a slick web mail interface. All they have to do to make Mash a success is to integrate absolutely everything. Such integration would make it extremely simple for users to maintain their pages. At the end of the day, most people are lazy, simplicity could drive its success.
Its competitors, My Space and Facebook have some significant drawbacks. My Space appears messy and disorganized. It is not easily navigable. Facebook perhaps has the edge in that its pages sport a cleaner and more uniform look. Users can find their way around each others sites more easily, which leads to greater activity. Facebook is, however, somewhat crippled by its verification system. While verifying an account is simple for U.S. based users, it is impossible for people in Japan. We do not have SMS. Yahoo is able to incorporate everything in one clean package. Is Mash too little too late? Hardly, Yahoo has learned from the mistakes of its competitors and has the potential to be extremely competitive in the social networking scene.
Source: Mapping the Web (Image)
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Tags: Op-Ed, social-networking
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Business Blog » Yahoo! Mash too Little too Late? - Uber-Review
Sep 19, 2007 at 6:31 am
[...] Yahoo! Mash too Little too Late?Uber-Review - 21 minutesThe odds against a startup taking on the two biggest names in social networking would be almost insurmountable. Yahoo, however, has a few aces up its sleeve … [...]
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