Yahoo! is jumping into the social networking game with Yahoo! Buzz. Bloggers across the Internet are sharing their thoughts and wondering if this is indeed a competitor for Digg.
Many are asking if Buzz will be another place to promote their blogs and others wonder if it just another copycat site of the hugely popular Digg.
What’s Hot
This is where I see bloggers getting the most benefit from Buzz. It seems like this site has attracted members similar to Digg. Of all of the categories that I looked at, only about two of the articles displayed were not from major news sites, huge information portal sites, or otherwise well-known sites. This would provide bloggers with information about what people are talking about RIGHT NOW.
Personally, I would rather use Google Trends which is purely based upon the number of searches being made for up to 100 phrases.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Yahoo! and much of what they stand for as a company. But, using current searches as a basis for what’s hot just seems more reliable than what members have Dugg or Buzzed.
Though I must admit when I looked at both sites while writing this blog post, they both listed Stephanie Tubbs Jones (the poor woman who suffered a brain aneurysm earlier today) in the number one position. Number two on Google was “aneurysm” and Yahoo! Buzz had “Christina Applegate”. Which of the number twos do you think more people are actually talking about today?
Small Bloggers
It would seem from my looksee today that lesser-known bloggers would be unlikely to rank well on Yahoo! Buzz. The focus on “news” makes Buzz more about what is coming off the AP and Reuters’ news wires than actual conversations about that news. Seems Buzz, like Digg, is more about who can find the latest news off the wire services first rather than what people are actually finding interesting.
I have twice managed to write posts on Blog About Crafts that vaulted to the front page of Digg and hopefully the overwhelming predominance of sites like the New York Times, Yahoo!’s own news pages, and huge sites carrying household names will level out as more bloggers find the site. I suspect there will be those exceptionally written and thoughtful everyman blog posts that will do well on the site and I hope that as the site matures there will be more opportunity for those posts to be recognized.
Social Networking?
If I want to know the news, I go to Yahoo! or any of the other news outlets directly. What I’m looking for on blogging sites and social networking sites is how bloggers think a particular news item could impact their personal or business life; not a reprint of the original news story. It’s the opinions that make blogs so very interesting.
The top Buzzed story while I was writing this post had over 160 Buzz Ups and not a single comment. Not much social about that.
Yahoo! launches new social networking website. It’s called Buzz and bloggers are talking about it. The site is new and has people wondering if it will provide Digg with some competition or will just be yet another social networking site, even if run by Yahoo!. It does seem to have the popular news trends aspect going well; the social networking aspect would appear to need a bit more work.