for W3c validation
There is an interesting post on Yahoo! Anecdotal by Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s CEO, that talks about Yahoo’s new 3-pronged strategy —
- Become the starting point for the most consumers
- Become the must-buy for advertisers
- Deliver open, industry-leading platforms that attract the most publishers and developers
Obviously, point number 2 will drive Yahoo’s revenue, but numbers 1 and 3 are the ones that are interesting from my perspective — they seem to be leading Yahoo right toward Facebook’s focus as a social utility. My “starting point” on the web is now Facebook; it’s always the 1st site I check when going online at home (not at work). I now only occassionally visit Google’s main search page (but use Google Reader everyday), which seems weird. Point number 1 says Yahoo wants to be a starting point for most consumers, which is the position Facebook currently occupies — at least for me. And point number 3 has a focus of “being open,” which is the strategy Facebook has used to become the starting point for millions of people.
Though I love Facebook, I’m hopefully optimistic Yahoo can make strides toward becoming more social. They have Flickr, MyBlogLog, Del.icio.us — now they just need to integrate the properly. They already have massive amounts of traffic, so they have a much easier road to being a social platform than just about anyone other than Google.
So, can Yahoo! pull it off?? Can they beat Facebook at their own game?
