Yahoo! 360°
Yahoo! 360° logo | |
File:360 1.JPG | |
Type of site | Social network service |
---|---|
Owner | Yahoo! |
Created by | Yahoo! |
URL | http://360.yahoo.com/ |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Required |
Yahoo! 360° is a personal communication portal operated by Yahoo!. It is similar to Orkut and MySpace, and is technically still in beta testing, though unsupported by Yahoo! any more. 360° includes social networking, blogging, and photo sharing services.
Users can create personal web sites, share photos from Yahoo! Photos, maintain blogs, lists of local reviews, supply profile information, and see which friends are currently online. 360° also, by default, features a 'friends updates' section, under which each friend's latest update is summarized (e.g. blog posts, updates lists, new photostream etc.).
History
Yahoo 360° initially launched as an invitation-only service on March 29, 2005. After the full launch on June 24, 2005, it became available to any Yahoo! user over the age of 18 in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan and Vietnam.
From September 2006 through September 2007, the US-based web traffic visiting 360° dropped by more than half. Despite the service having had a more global appeal than some of its counterparts, its global visits also saw a significant drop during the same time frame.[1]
On October 16, 2007, Yahoo announced that they would no longer provide support for or perform bug fixes on Yahoo! 360° as they intend to abandon it in early 2008 in favor of a "universal profile" that will be similar to their Yahoo! Mash experimental system.[2] They have, however, said, that it will not be replaced with Mash itself.[3]
Features
Features introduced with 360°:
- Themes - custom and prebuilt
- Blogs (with RSS feeds)
- Lists - where users may compile interests, favorite movies, books, and so on
- Feeds - where users may include RSS feeds for themselves and others from favorite sources
- Photos - users may share their public photo albums from Flickr.com
- Blasts - quick posts or ideas that are neither published in the blog nor archived
- Testimonials - "review" and praise individuals
- Groups - connect to users sharing similar interests
- Friend Updates - view latest activities from friends
- Quick Comments - leave short messages on other people's pages
- LAUNCHcast - share music stations and tastes
- Reviews from Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Travel and Yahoo! Games
Integration with Yahoo! Messenger
Since v8.0, Yahoo! Messenger built in features that allowed users to view 360° page, update blasts, post blog entries and view friend updates from within Messenger. This integration allowed Messenger users to view their contacts' pages and alerted users when their contacts' updated their page.
Integration with other Yahoo! services
Yahoo! 360° integrated with several Yahoo! services. These include:
- Flickr
- LAUNCH
- Yahoo! Avatars
- Yahoo! Groups
- Yahoo! Local
- Yahoo! Shopping
- Yahoo! Travel
- Yahoo! Games
- Yahoo! Geocities
References
- ^ "Yang Decides to Shut Down Yahoo 360—Nobody Notices". 2007-10-23. Retrieved 2008-01-25.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (help) - ^ Yahoo! 360° Product Blog, "The Evolution of Yahoo! 360" from Matt Warburton, Yahoo! Community Manager
- ^ Yahoo! 360° Product Blog, "The 360° Transition - Answers to some of your questions" from Matt Warburton, Yahoo! Community Manager