Marc Canter on the news that Yahoo! has bought Oddpost:
This story is much more than Yahoo buying Oddpost to compete with Gmail. Sure - that's part of it - and I'm sure that's what Terry Semel et al have in their heads, but it's this sort of viral infusion into Yahoo that was needed.This is much bigger than the search engine battles or even Yahoo versus Google.
This is about RIAs (rich internet apps), integrated web services and open standards being fused with productivity software, micro-content and social networking and offered as hosted experiences.
Does this sound like anything familiar? Yahoo has defined what portals have been - since day one - but their UI just plain sucked! Even the valiant attempts at providing "customization" features in MyYahoo - were tolerable at best. Yahoo supports RSS and has over 120M active end-users. Yahoo is showing how portals and ISPs can work together by providing software bundled with services - to the masses. But Odd post makes it a whole new ball game.
Now Yahoo can step up to the front on "end-user" experience. That holey grail that's been eluding them since day one. HTML was never designed and will never fulfil the end-user quotient. The human factor. The essence of compelling experiences.
HTML will also suck. But once you can truly integrate rich interactive experiences in the browser, and tie it into services and functionality - you got a winning formula for digital lifestyle aggregation! And once you have email, why stop there? Why not jukeboxes (like MySpace has) or photo blog objects (like Flickr) or Tribe Listings, Friends and Tribes appearing in blog gutters - as well?
Why stop there? Why not support an Open Listings standard and just completely screw Google completely? Certainly let's hope that Yahoo will support FOAF. Google is (or will) or (I sure hope they will.)
Marc Canter on MySapce: 'MySpace now has improved their Groups - and added it to their line-up of better blogging, classifieds, very coolio music features and special 'band groups'. MySpace has proven that it really is about the activities and giving people something to do. IM, Ranking and Games seem to be the core activities. Business model? Ads. Sponsorships. Special Band Groups. Watch for even more ''premium' features that folks will pay for. How many of them - you ask? Over 2M.'
