Yahoo 360 Connects Friends, Blogs and Photos

Editor's Note: At the end of this month, Yahoo has indicated they will be launching a comprehensive social network service called Yahoo 360.

WebProWorld Yahoo To Launch Social Networking Portal Yahoo 360, the Google introduced Yahoo might be interested in acquiring Six Apart for its blogging offerings, especially the hosted MSN Spaces, the social networking/blogging service launched by Microsoft last December. The only thing I can see with Yahoo's offering which is a problem is the name: specifically, the 'degrees' part (that's what the little symbol is next to the number). I had to hunt around to type it in this post as it's not on a standard keyboard - it's Alt-0176 on Windows keyboard, if you want to know - so I wonder how long it will be before it gets known simply as 'Yahoo 360.' For additional info - including mention of a launch date of 29 March - see Charlene Li of this report from Steve Rubel AP reports that Yahoo is preparing to introduce a new service that blends several of its Web site's popular features with blogging and social networking. The hybrid service, called Yahoo! 360, won't be available until March 29, but the promotional web site is a page with more info using my Yahoo! ID, but was unable to actually try the service. Mike Liedke from Yahoo 360 splash page... With Yahoo! 360, you'll have one place to keep the important people in your life connected to you. And one place for you to stay connected to them. Easily invite your friends and family... It's very easy to plug all of your people in. With just a few clicks you can invite any -- or everyone from you Yahoo! Messenger friends list, you Yahoo! Address Book or (after beta) from Microsoft Outlook to connect to you. This all sounds good. The only downside is that the service is invitation only - much like Gmail, Orkut and Google's services. Still, I imagine it won't be that hard to snag an invite. Here's a rundown of the core features that I pulled from the Yahoo 360 site... Nick Wilson The AP is reporting Yahoo has finally announced plans to join the blogging and social networking game with Yahoo 360, a mix of tools to be released on March 29th that includes blogging, photo sharing and social networking. Yahoo is testing the service with a small group of employees, some of whom have been working on the project since last year when the product was operating under the code name "Mingle." The service is designed to enable Yahoo's 165 million registered users to pull content from the Web site's discussion groups, online photo albums and review section to plug into their own Web logs, or blogs, the Internet shorthand used to describe online personal journals. Yahoo also is making it easier for the service's users to connect with others who share common interests and friends - a practice known as social networking. Participants can either choose to open their blogs to the entire world or restrict access to people invited through e-mail. Meanwhile, Forrester's Maybe come March 29th we'll finaly find out if Flickr purchase are true or not as we find out exactly how photos fit into this mix... Ok, where's my damn invite then? Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for latest search news.