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 live now. I was able to log in to a page with more info using my Yahoo! ID, but was unable to actually try the service. Mike Liedke from AP writes...
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.
According to the 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. Nevertheless, I imagine it won't be that hard to snag an invite. Also, I am wondering out loud if this launch means that Yahoo!'s rumored acquisitions of either Six Apart and/or Flickr are far from imminent? Here's a rundown of the core features that I pulled from the Yahoo 360 site. Wither GeoCities? Charlene Li has more analysis.
