Look who's caught another case of Web 2.0 envy.
Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) is launching a microblogging site -- Yahoo! Meme -- that hopes to cash in on the snappy status updates currently making Twitter, Facebook, and News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWS) MySpace so popular.
There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the product, which originally launched in Portuguese and Spanish last month, before making the logical leap to English this week. It allows users to post short snippets of text, alongside snapshots, video clips, and audio. In that sense, it's more like Tumblr or vanquished pioneers Pownce and Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Jaiku.
Unfortunately, this is also a Yahoo! platform for self-expression. If you know anything about the company's history with user-generated content, you know it's as doomed as a Final Destination character. Someone has probably already called the karma police to shut this party down before it gets started.
Let's go over the reasons why you shouldn't waste your time on Yahoo! Meme.
- Yahoo! launched a social-networking site -- Mash -- two summers ago. It shut it down less than a year later.
- GeoCities offered free, ad-supported hosting for some of the Web's earliest pioneer settlers. It lasted a few years, but the settlements were ultimately razed. Eviction notices were sent out in April.
- Anyone who relied on Yahoo! Briefcase for data storage got a rude awakening this year, when the online giant shut that service down in March. Yahoo! Photos went to the darkroom in the sky two years ago.
In short, Yahoo! hates you and everything you do. Why would anyone trust a new Yahoo! product with user-generated content? Sure, one can argue that Flickr, del.icio.us, and Yahoo! Q&A are alive and well, but do you really want to play Russian roulette?
There are no saints among the dot-com heavies. Google killed off support for Notebook, Dodgeball, and Jaiku. Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL whacked BlueString, AOL Photos, and its GeoCities-esque page hosting services. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) axed its Soapbox video-sharing site.
This doesn't mean that Internet users can only trust the upstarts; smaller players can get choked off when financing runs dry.
However, given Yahoo!'s spotty history of supporting fledgling sites that rely on user-generated content as a foundation, it's hard to get excited about Yahoo! Meme.
Never trust a company riding Twitter's coattails with a pair of scissors in its hand.
Some other cool gems in 140 characters of less:
- Twitter may be a recessionary winner.
- Facebook may still be the next Mr. Softy.
- Why You Should Fear the Future
