Yahoo 360

USA Today reports Yahoo is preparing to introduce a new service that blends several of its Web site's popular features with two of the Internet's fastest growing activities — blogging and social networking.

The hybrid service, called "Yahoo 360," won't be available until March 29, but it is designed to enable Yahoo's 165 million registered users to pull content from the Web site's discussion groups, online photo albums and review section to plug into their own Web logs, or blogs, the Internet shorthand used to describe online personal journals.

WebProNews reports the promotional web site is live now, and he was able to log in to a page with more info using my Yahoo! ID, but was unable to actually try the service.

ZDNet reports Yahoo's move comes as social networking and blogging draw increased interest from rivals, including Microsoft and Google. Microsoft in December added a blog product for its MSN Web service, called MSN Spaces. Google, meanwhile, owns Web log service Blogger and social networking site Orkut.


WebProNews reports Signing up for the service will be by invitation only, according to Yahoo (similar to how Google introduced Gmail).... I would imagine that Yahoo 360° will directly compete with MSN Spaces, the social networking/blogging service launched by Microsoft last December.

There is a page where you can volunteer to be added to the beta test.