I've often wondered what's taken Yahoo this long to start taking big hits on it's services line, and I guess it was just time. As of today the news was released that Yahoo is closing Yahoo Auctions, with no new auctions being accepted after June 3rd, and it will be completely closed by October 16th of this year. Surprisingly, in my opinion, it wasn't google that slammed them this time. According to the results for 2006 search results, 97% of all auction search traffic last year went straight to ebay, with only.19% going to yahoo, even on their own search engine.
Lesson of the day: If you're gonna run auctions, you have to go to ebay.
Yahoo Photos takes the hit too:
They also released today that they are going to be closing yahoo photos, which I hate to see. I've been using Yahoo photos so share some of my photos with friends for years, but I guess it's time. With all the sites out there such as Flickr and PhotoBucket, I can't say I'm surprised. Even MySpace is now offering massive photo uploads in an effort to draw more users from the other competing sites. When I first signed up for myspace, I could only load 12 pictures on my account. Now, I just uploaded almost 100 last night and didn't see any sign of having any kind of limit. The only thing I dont like about using myspace for picture hosting is that you have to have an account and be signed in for people to see your photos, so I can't just email anyone a link and expect them to be able to see it.
Videos Anyone?
For anyone that's interested, MySpace is apparently trying to stop losing video traffic to YouTube as well. When I checked last night, you can upload videos up to 100 MB on your MySpace account as well, which is pretty neat. Videos are the new photos this year it seems. I wonder what the next upload format is going to be that's going to take the market head on?
Anyway, I just thought you might want to know. I know a few of us, like Agent M, used to use Yahoo photos a lot in the past, so you need to look for alternative solutions in the near future. It seems that Yahoo is going to offer a free month of Flickr to people who want to transfer their pictures over to that network.
With Google taking over the document and communications platform (Gmail, Google Docs, GoogleChat, GooglePages) and Myspace taking over the user connectivity users, and YouTube holding tight to the video users, I wonder how much percentage those three sites account for in the personal internet use world...
Local News:
It seems again that the local news is attacking MySpace yet again. Between bad news media and lawsuits, I'm amazed they can afford to stay open. In case you've lived in a cave sans internet for the last 18 months, MySpace is getting sued left and right by parent groups who say that it's making their kids open to cyber-stalkers. Without making a big to do about the whole situation, I'd like to make a few points on the matter.
- If your kids can't be trusted not to talk to strange old guys online, then dont put the computer in their bedroom where you can't see what they're doing on it.
- Don't be an idiot and blame myspace for your bad parenting. Put an internet filter on your computer to stop them from visiting myspace if you don't like them doing it.. it takes about 10 seconds to set it up.
- MySpace isn't even the first to do this. Yahoo has has free user profile generation AND allows anonymous users to view profiles, where MySpace MAKES you register to see profiles. So, of the two, Yahoo is and always has been more dangerous in terms of online stalker capabilities.
- Those of you who support the myspace lawsuits are idiots. It's the exact same thing as you suing a shopping mall because your kid got fondled in a shopping mall...you cant sue the mall for being in existence. Myspace is 18 and older only. Your kids are guilty of fraud by signing up, which means you're lucky MySpace hasn't sued you in retaliation for violating its terms of service in the first place.
- You don't want your kids playing in the neighborhood I guess, because of strangers, so you let them play online. Now they can't play online because of stalkers too apparently. How about taking five minutes out of your day, take your fat pasty-skinned kid off the computer, and take him roller-skating or something. Hell, if he's lying about his age online anyway, might as well get them a fake-id and take them to a bar while you're at it.
Ugh.. ok.. need more coffee.
A-freaking-men. You read my mind on the MySpace rant. I especially liked the counter-suit for fraud concept. I would love to see that!
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