Living in a digital world

Just when you’ve sussed Facebook – Yahoo and Google start thinking about the ‘Next Generation’

News broke this weekend that both Yahoo and Google are working on their own ‘next generation’ social networking services.

Yahoo is apparently sticking to its usual approach of not commenting on such developments, but ‘leaks’ describe their oddly named ‘Mosh’ as a “new cool social network product” within Yahoo.

If it goes ahead then this will presumably replace Yahoo’s current 360 social network service that never seems to have got off the ground – as well as ending talk of Yahoo’s looking to acquire Bebo or Facebook. In fact, it could be that last year’s failed negotiations with Facebook, which reportedly saw Yahoo’s offer price go up to $1.62 billion, are what has led to their decision to build instead of buy.

Meanwhile, Google is being far more open about its activity with Google Operating System reporting that the company is sponsoring a project called ‘Socialstream’ at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, to “rethink and reinvent online social networking”.

No details of when, of even if, Socialstream is planned to be released. However, descriptions of the project suggest that Google is looking towards enabling the easy consolidation of feeds from existing social networking sites, rather than creating a stand-alone competitor.

This looks like smart thinking – as it could enable Google to come-out a winner at the end of the next few years of site battles and consolidations, no matter which individual social networking sites finally prevail.

July 10, 2007 - Posted by Bryan | Uncategorized