Mike Memos

Over the next few weeks, [Yahoo's] 280 million e-mail users will be able to exchange comments, pictures and news articles with others in their address books. The program won't expose a user's contact list to the public, as was done by Google through its social networking application, Buzz. But unless a user proactively opts out of the program, those Yahoo e-mail subscribers will automatically be part of a sweeping rollout of features that will incorporate the kinds of sharing done on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

To allay privacy concerns, Yahoo said it would give users a week's notice before launching the new features and provide a single button on the site for opting out entirely.

Specifically, the company will launch a product called Yahoo Updates that allows e-mail users to see what other contacts on their lists are commenting about or sharing on sites like Yahoo Finance, Facebook and the photo sharing site Flickr. Updates will initially include 15 sites and partnerships and will eventually expand to include partners such as Twitter this summer.

Long live email. That's the rallying cry of many who are heavily invested in the platform, including Google (with Gmail) and now Yahoo. Yahoo is putting its bets on a new product platform called Yahoo Updates, which will be similar in nature (judging by the article above) to Google Buzz.

Is email the first and original social network, as Jeremiah Owyang describes? Or is the inbox sacred and independent of the relational ties we forge across the ever-expanding, ever-changing social web?

While Google Buzz saw several hiccups across its implementation, I still think it was a resounding success as an entrant into the market. The only problem is that the large majority of Gmail users just weren't/aren't interested in being part of a social network. Will the same be true for Yahoo email subscribers, a userbase some 50% larger than that of Gmail (and the 2nd largest free email provider overall)?

This move by Yahoo looks like a forced entry into the social space, and it could bear the same fate as Buzz. Just as I've said before that not everyone (or every business) should be using social media, I don't believe that everyone should be part of a social network either. In both situations, the entry into the social web is a conscious choice. It isn't something that can be willed upon a set of users, as Yahoo appears to be doing.

Do you think Yahoo Updates will be a success? Will you be opting out before the program launches (or would you opt out if you had a Yahoo Mail account)?