Yahoo! 360°

Infobox Website
name = Yahoo! 360°



caption = Typical 360° personal homepage (when logged in and viewing one's own page)
url = http://360.yahoo.com/
commercial = Yes
type = Social network service
registration = Yahoo! account
owner = Yahoo!
author = Yahoo!
launch date = March 29, 2005
current status = Active, but unsupported
slogan =

Yahoo! 360° is a personal communication portal operated by Yahoo!. It is similar to other social networking sites and is technically still in beta testing, though unsupported by Yahoo! any more. 360° includes social networking, blogging, and photo sharing services.

Users can create personal web sites, share photos from Yahoo! Photos, maintain blogs, lists of local reviews, supply profile information, and see which friends are currently online. 360° also, by default, features a 'friends updates' section, under which each friend's latest update is summarized (e.g. blog posts, updates lists, new photostream etc.).

History

Yahoo 360° initially launched as an invitation-only service on March 29, 2005. After the full launch on June 24, 2005, it became available to any Yahoo! user over the age of 18 in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan and Vietnam.

From September 2006 through September 2007, the US-based web traffic visiting 360° dropped by more than half. Despite the service having had a more global appeal than some of its counterparts, its global visits also saw a significant drop during the same time frame.cite web |url=http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/23/yang-decides-to-shut-down-yahoo-360%E2%80%94nobody-notices/ |title=Yang Decides to Shut Down Yahoo 360—Nobody Notices | firstname=Erick |lastname=Schonfeld |date=2007-10-23 |accessdate=2008-01-25 ]

On October 16, 2007, Yahoo announced that they would no longer provide support for or perform bug fixes on Yahoo! 360° as they intend to abandon it in early 2008 in favor of a "universal profile" that will be similar to their Yahoo! Mash experimental system. [ [http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Ehaak.hdNZkEAzDrpa4Q--?cq=1&p=49226 Yahoo! 360° Product Blog] , "The Evolution of Yahoo! 360" from Matt Warburton, Yahoo! Community Manager] They have, however, said, that it will not be replaced with Mash itself. [ [http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Ehaak.hdNZkEAzDrpa4Q--?cq=1&p=51234 Yahoo! 360° Product Blog] , "The 360° Transition - Answers to some of your questions" from Matt Warburton, Yahoo! Community Manager]

On May 6, 2008, Yahoo announced that they have several Vietnam-centric initiatives as part of their Southeast Asia business strategies. One of these initiatives is called [http://vn.360plus.yahoo.com Yahoo! 360plus] - A new Vietnamese blogging application. The 360plus product is specific to the Vietnamese market. [ [http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Ehaak.hdNZkEAzDrpa4Q--?cq=1&p=59214 Yahoo! 360° Product Blog] , "Introducing 360plus - a New Vietnamese Blogging Application" from Matt Warburton, Yahoo! Community Manager] . 360plus, is an attempt of the Vietnamese government to switch bloggers of Yahoo! 360 to their controlled site.

Features

Features introduced with 360°:
* Themes - custom and prebuilt
* Blogs (with RSS feeds)
* Lists - where users may compile interests, favorite movies, books, and so on
* Feeds - where users may include RSS feeds for themselves and others from favorite sources
* Photos - users may share their public photo albums from Flickr.com
* Blasts - quick posts or ideas that are neither published in the blog nor archived
* Testimonials - "review" and praise individuals
* Groups - connect to users sharing similar interests
* Friend Updates - view latest activities from friends
* Quick Comments - leave short messages on other people's pages
* LAUNCHcast - share music stations and tastes
* Reviews from Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Travel and Yahoo! Games

Integration with Yahoo! Messenger

Since v8.0, Yahoo! Messenger built in features that allowed users to view 360° page, update blasts, post blog entries and view friend updates from within Messenger. This integration allowed Messenger users to view their contacts' pages and alerted users when their contacts' updated their page.

Integration with other Yahoo! services

Yahoo! 360° integrated with several Yahoo! services. These include:
* Flickr
* LAUNCH
* Yahoo! Avatars
* Yahoo! Groups
* Yahoo! Local
* Yahoo! Shopping
* Yahoo! Travel
* Yahoo! Games
* Yahoo! Geocities

References

External links

* [http://360.yahoo.com Yahoo! 360° official site]
* [http://blog.360.yahoo.com/product_360 Yahoo! 360° Product Blog]
* [http://vn.360plus.yahoo.com Yahoo! Việt Nam 360plus official site] (controlled by the Vietnamese government)