When Social Media site isn’t social
Yahoo had already launched their won social media site before Facebook became more popular than myspace. It is called Yahoo! Mash. A more social media like than Yahoo! 360 which offer the users ‘to create’ a profile for their friends and let them customize it. It also features “Module”, a sort of social network applications. All in all, it is a Facebook competitor.
Unfortunately, the said site has been smashed away. Yahoo! Mash creators were going to shut it down at the end of this month. Yahoo! Mash failed to attract global social presence even if they already have prospect users which would come from Yahoo! 360 network which existed while Facebook is in it’s birth. This is the second time that Yahoo! discontinued their social network attempt.
What really happen why they are shutting it down? My guess is that the creators failed to become social with their social network. Word of the mouth isn’t enough? To all those Facebook and Myspace wannabes out there, you better take this as a lesson. A social media site is not just merely a network of users but a socially designed network for targeted audience. Facebook were exclusively for high school and college students before. Myspace targets on teenagers with glitter texts and flashing emo pictures. And this is what made them became popular. Marketers and Spammers joined in to do their marketing tactics. Some products have succeed and others did not.