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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Buzzing the Yahoo way!



Well its been a while since the Yahoo's new product Yahoo Buzz has been around. But how many of us really use it! Has this site dedicated to buzz failed to create a successful buzz about itself? Well before we come to any conclusions regarding that, here are a few observations:
  • The Yahoo Buzz website has tried to do 2 things together: Force people to write and at the same time coerce people to upload or give links to the most interesting videos/music clips/articles that they come across.
Now I feel this was done in an attempt to try and catch up with its leading rival Google, by matching its websites youtube & blogger. In this attempt Yahoo have ended up being a middle-of-the-roader.
  • It has a feature called the iPhone, where the top 5 stories/posted buzz items are displayed in a format that resembles an iPod display and you can navigate similar to that of an iPod.
I feel if Yahoo wanted to make its site innovative and interesting, it should have made the iPod type of display on its homepage itself in the ploy to try and attract more visitors. Moreover not a lot of users would actually scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the iPhone option etc etc. Aint they expecting too much?
  • Similar to Google's Blogger, the Yahoo Buzz has a feature of voting for each post that you read. But they difference here is that in Blogger any annonymous person reading can vote and comment on the posts, whereas in Yahoo Buzz you gotta be a registered user on Yahoo Buzz to even vote!
One cant expect everyone to register on Yahoo Buzz just to vote on another article!! Moreover you cant even post your views on the buzz's that you read!!! Everyone loves giving opinions, Google has capitalised on this behavioural trait whereas Yahoo... seems to have missed a trick here!!!

  • Finally Yahoo has its name attached to the new product, this was surely done in an intent to using its present brand equity to attract surfers to its site.
Well seems a good ploy, but if this this site fails to meet the expectations or needs of the users then I guess it may have a spill over effect on the brand name Yahoo!!!

So guess we gotta wait and watch,
what yahoo does,
to create a buzz,
about the yahoo buzz! :)