How Not To Blog ?

Most of Yahoo's users are stupid when it comes to the internet and the web. In fact, I think they're only second in terms of numbers of idiots on the internet in their database, after AOL. Yes, I'm a Yahoo user, and I love Yahoo (except for the time when one of their email servers blew up and I couldn't access my account for about 3 years).

Yahoo should re-consider their strategy for 360 and related offerings.

They can't just roll out a sophisticated suite of products that include blogs, RSS, social networking, etc.

360 should first determine how stupid the user is, then present the appropriate menus to them. Not just "simple" and "advanced" menus, either. In addition to an algorithm that queries what they know about each user from its database to figure out how stupid that user is, they would do well to introduce stupid users to 360 the following way.

After signing in, display something like:

I want to...
Be able to upload and share my photos
Keep a personal log and share it with my friends and family
Write reviews of [whatever]
View my friends and their friends in a network
etc...

Not everyone knows what a blog is (only about 30% of Americans have an idea). Of these I would guess half only think they know, and another half actually know what they themselves can do with it. You can't just say "Click Here To Blog!" or "Join this Network" to your userbase if You're! Yahoo!

Hide the complexity from most of your users, while allowing more technical users to easily select what they want. Make sure, however, that the idiot always has the opportunity to use the system more intelligently. Truly customized user menus and user interfaces are the future, man.

I don't think 360 will be a kick-ass new service in its present or near-term incarnations. It's still in beta but I am pretty sure Yahoo will do its best to make it work, as 360 seems central to its new strategy of maintaining/increasing user stickiness.

You can now check out the Yahoo! 360 beta. Here's how:

1) Login to your Yahoo account

2) Go to the following location

The link may not last for long.

So far 360 has the following user menu: Home, My Page, My Blog, My Friends, Mailbox, Invite, Search, Settings

On the left panel, there are the following member-related options (social network menu): Top Page, Blog, Friends, Lists, Reviews, Groups

You can view a larger screenshot here.

The earliest post from the above-accessible blog is from Friday, Oct 22, 2004 - 11:37am (PDT) titled "Day two..." and talks about Project Mingle (360).