Yahoo announced that they will be begin offering social networking elements.
“We are going to rewire the entire experience at Yahoo to make it social in every dimension,” said Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer. The open platform is a concept that already has been embraced by Google, Facebook and MySpace.
The new feature will give Yahoo’s roughly 500 million users greater flexibility to customize, including the ability to pick from a variety of widgets for placement just about anywhere on the site, including a personalized home page.
Will this be good for marketers and advertisers? We’ll see: I’ve gotten used to targeting ads based on interest and demographic, which works. For example, What if Betty White and Rue Mclanahan wrote a show about their relationship with Bea Arthur called Rue and Betty about Bea on Broadway. (Hint, hint, ladies—and producers!) I want to target people with “Broadway,” “Off Broadway,” “The Golden Girls,” “Maude,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Bea Arthur,” etc. in their profiles and send them a hot message about the new hit show. On Facebook, I can now target users down to age and location. (Hello, 45 year old ladies in New York!) Yahoo is now making this possible, too.
We haven’t had much luck using search ads on Yahoo: I have tried it with a few shows, but I can’t match the high ROIs I get on Facebook and Google).
Will this makeover make Yahoo a more effective place to advertise? I hope so and I will certainly let you know. Yahoo’s search, chat, music and email are already great, and if this will help me reach the audiences I want, I’m all for it. C’mon, Golden Girls fans, get your wallets out!
