Yahoo! Previews Mash – A New Social Network
September 14, 2007 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has been working on a new social networking site for awhile, and today, TechCrunch reported that Yahoo! has begun sending invitations to “friends outside Yahoo!” to participate in the beta site for the new Y! Mash. Sounds like an interesting new place to build awareness of your personal brand online.
A little bit Facebook and a little bit MySpace, it appears Mash will be a user-friendly social networking site that may eventually replace Yahoo! 360. To support the beta launch, Yahoo! set up a Mash Blog where invited members can leave comments or suggestions. Here’s what’s being said on the Y! Mash blog:
“We just started inviting our friends outside Yahoo! to join us in testing Mash: a new approach to online profiles. If you’ve used other online profiles before you’ll feel at home in Mash. But there are some new twists that make things a little interesting and, we think, a lot of fun.
- You can make starter profiles for your friends. Think: “first round’s on me.”
- You can leave your profile open to contributions by trusted friends.
- You can customize your—or your friend’s—profile with modules from a growing gallery of apps.
Of course, there are extensive privacy controls in Mash and you set the boundaries that you’re comfortable with.”
TechCrunch has some invites available through InviteShare, which you can get here. If you sign up for Mash, stop back by Brandcurve and let us know what you think. In the meantime, what do you think about Yahoo!’s latest venture in social networking? Do you think it can compete with Facebook and similar sites?
Unfortunately, it appears that Yahoo my be just a late to the social networking club. mySpace and Facebook are very well entrenched, it would be difficult to add another player into the mix. How would MASH be different to all of the other social networking sites out there? I guess it remain to be seen.
James, I agree that differentiation is going to be a critical factor in Yahoo! Mash’s success. It will be very interesting to watch this play out over time.
Yahoo would be better served just working the kinks out of 360—it offers all the elements found in Y!Mash in a classier, user friendly style that transcends age boundaries.
I agree with Susan, above, and have voiced this concern to Yahoo.
They have an excellent product in Y/360, which has every capacity to be the best of its class — if Yahoo would only fix the bugs and bring it out of its current beta-status.
I think… that they might have picked a better name. I just will always associate mash with Mash (movie, tv) I get it but maybe something original would be better. Also, I agree that the current networking sites are kind of big (and enough) already. I’d hate having one more log-in to deal with so I won’t be joining up.