Yahoo has proven itself quite the fighter when it comes to staying relevant and projecting a strong presence. For a company that harkens back to the Internet’s “good old days,” this is an impressive feat. Its latest coup is an expansion of its integration of Facebook, helping take the social media monster to a worldwide audience.
The online marketing watchers, Internet aficionados and social media critics were sent into a blogging hurricane when Yahoo announced the news on Monday. In addition to the global integration, Yahoo also paraded its shiny new Yahoo Pulse, a privacy dashboard that many see as the wave of the future. According to PC Magazine, the new Yahoo and Facebook marriage will allow users of both sites to sync their accounts to view and share updates with pals in both of the massive networks. This is a drool-worthy prospect for small businesses looking to bridge the gap between their email lists and their Facebook fans. All of that pressing and vital information (wink!) that appears on your Facebook news feed homepage now will be available on your Yahoo homepage, too.
This union is a long time in the making and one that Yahoo has been crowing about since last December. The slow and steady merging of the web superpowers – called Facebook Connect – began last March when Yahoo users were given the option to import email addresses from their Facebook accounts while allowing users to update their status from Yahoo Mail. Yahoo shrewdly outmaneuvered the naysayers who have been dogging the Facebook privacy policies for months by installing and creating Yahoo Pulse. Pulse is an easy to update and access privacy dashboard that covers all Yahoo applications as well as Facebook. Yahoo Pulse is set to launch soon and hopefully will answer the nagging privacy debate.
This being said, columnists across the country still are bemoaning the possible effects social media has on our ability to communicate in person and the lack of personal space and privacy that social media provides. So let’s turn it over to you, my Brandsplat buddies. Is this new love-fest between Yahoo and Facebook a social media marketing dream or nightmare? Do dashboards like Yahoo Pulse provide peace of mind or is it hype to the nth degree? Say it with love in the comment section below!
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