RSS
Email
SMS
The Questions Abuzz About Yahoo Buzz (or Does Yahoo Buzz Make Any Difference to Us)
(Rate this article)
Loading ...Email It!
We have had a lot of stories doing rounds about Yahoo Buzz since its launch in early 2008. And now with buzz opening its gate to all sets of publishers, it has started creating some buzz of its own. The traffic that it sends to those who crack it to the Yahoo homepage is dizzying and well documented by now.
So we have a Salon.com and its press release celebrating over a million visitors in a single day, TechCrunch having its highest traffic day, Huffington Post gathering close to a million visits in a day (800,000 uniques) among others.
Muhammed Saleem, a popular social media enthusiast and marketer wrote a perhaps the first analysis of the Buzz Effect and the impact Buzz can have on social bookmarking and social media marketing in general. The post carried views which I certainly agree with, especially in terms of the crowd that Buzz brings to the table. Yahoo Buzz has definitely increased the size of the pie but for now it certainly tastes different.
How does it Taste Different?
Keeping the pie metaphor aside, as a regular publisher and Indian at that, I have some doubts about the benefit Yahoo Buzz can provide me.
Yahoo Buzz is currently US centric
Yahoo! Buzz is currently focused on the U.S. audience. When will its focus shift? And how will the shift take place? Will Yahoo leverage on it’s individual regional home pages while keeping buzz a common platform for all? Or will we have a strong regional bookmarking biggie, say buzz.yahoo.co.in.?
Yahoo is rolling out the red carpet for bloggers
But do the users care about blogs and bloggers? If the engaging nature that most blogs have witnessed then perhaps they do. However, the important effect is in terms of the longevity of the traffic. How much regular readers did 1 shot on Yahoo’s main page bring?
Yahoo Search has Big Impact
The first step in determining buzz popularity is the most popular topics that people are searching for on Yahoo! Then, they showcase the most popular stories within those topics, through the buzz activity. So it actually boils down quite a lot to what people are searching for, so more than your content’s quality it is its relevance that holds the key. At least that’s what I get out of this when Yahoo says this.
It is still editor controlled
Now I am all for good quality content being taken to the main page, however, if there is an inherent benefit that a lot of publishers acknowledge, then they should also know what they need to do to stand a fair chance. They need to know what the editors are looking at? They need to know the parameters that are being used to define the Yahoo standard? It might be my partial eyes, but I felt I saw an overbearing exposure for large publishers compared to smaller ones. How will the equity distribute itself? Does Yahoo really give a fair chance?
The Publishers Themselves
After nearly half a year in closed beta Yahoo finally did open buzz for all publishers. And from what I have seen, it has its share of expected dirt of cheap deals and thrills. Will the fact that it is unmoderated in terms of submission make it just another digg clone? Will Yahoo do something that tightens the submission process to improve user experience? If they do, how will it affect regular legitimate publishers?
Now since most of my blog posts, especially those on WATBlog wouldn’t quite be US centric, I doubt if I will use Buzz prominently in my social media endeavors. However, I do see a lot of potential in it to bring a lot of mainstream users into the practice of sharing content which is the premise of social web. And that can open up big opportunities in terms of having a keen yet naive audience who have suddenly bit the social bait. This regardless of the fact that technically there is nothing social about Yahoo Buzz.
Loading ...
Leave a Comment and Follow the replies through Post Comment Feed