Yahoo! To Launch New Social Service ‘Buzz’?

Written by Igor Beuker on March 1st, 2008 | no comments

According to The New York Times, coming Tuesday (March 4) Yahoo! will announce it’s plans to introduce a new service called Buzz. Buzz will rely on users to help it compile the most popular articles from around the Web.

Yahoo! plans to include some of those on its front page, hoping to attract more users and turn it into a hub for driving traffic to other publishers.

Yahoo! will also announce coming Tuesday (March 4, says New York Times that it will allow fuller previews of online publishers’ sites in search results. A search result displaying a user of the social network LinkedIn, for instance, could include links to that person’s connections and full profile, and a result displaying a restaurant may include direct links to a reservations page or reviews.

Both moves are part of a strategy Jerry Yang has been promoting to open Yahoo’s services to third-party publishers. The Buzz service borrows heavily from other so-called social news aggregators, like Digg and Reddit, as it asks users to “vote” on items they like. Items with the most votes, or buzz, will earn prominent placement.

But the new Yahoo! Buzz service is different in some important ways. Rather than turn Buzz into a Web destination for users, Yahoo plans to include the content that surfaces through Buzz on its front page.

Initially, Yahoo will work with about 100 publishers that include large newspapers like The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post; magazines like Newsweek, People and The Economist; and dozens of blogs and online sites.

Over time, the Yahoo! plans to open Buzz to every site on the Web. The service will replace Yahoo’s existing Buzz, which tracks popular search terms. Read more at New York Times here.

I feel that Jerry Yang wants to revitalize his baby Yahoo! rather than selling it?! Do you agree with me? Or do you think Jerry Yang is looking for some extra buzz to sell Yahoo fast, for a higher price than the Microsoft bid? Tell our community what’s on your mind…

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