skrapnel

In his post “Who Needs Another Social Network?” on the New York Times Bits blog, Miguel Helft analyzes Yahoo’s new tactic of turning into a social site, and he gets it wrong. Yahoo has always had the foundations for a social network; most of its properties have very energetic communities. Its problem, however, has been trying to figure out how to link all of these properties to create a complete set of offerings for its users. It’s not too dissimilar to the problems we are facing on the whole for the Internet.

At this point in time, Web 2.0 has created disconnected portals in which we store our content: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, personal blogs, etc. The next step in the Internet’s development will be aggregating and sorting the content we produce into one centralized location. With that in mind, I feel like Yahoo is making a good first step.

By finally trying to link all of its properties, Yahoo is working towards solving a problem that is becoming increasingly more pervasive: too much content. The next step in the evolution of the web will be aggregating and sorting web content so we can find what we want where we want. This quote sums it up:

“We are not trying to be another social network,” said Yahoo president Susan Decker on Tuesday, during the company’s earnings conference call. “Rather, by linking users’ favorite destinations and content, with their friends’ families and communities, we can deliver better relevance on a scale that no one else has achieved.” Two days later, the company’s new chief technology officer, Ari Balogh, speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, elaborated a bit on the idea. “We don’t think of social as a destination,” Mr. Balogh said. “We think of social as a dimension.”

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.