Yahoo 360 (beta)

CNET editors' take

• Reviewed by: Ramon Ray
• Edited by: Robert Vamosi
• Reviewed on: 06/02/2005
• Updated on:08/25/2006
• Released on: 03/16/2005

The beta version of Yahoo's 360 is more than just a place to blog-- it's Yahoo's way of enabling its users to bring together all of their personal information and share it with their friends, family, and others. Think of Yahoo's new service as a digital community forum where friends can trade restaurant or business reviews, share photos, or brainstorm ideas, similar to Windows Live Spaces. Thus, Yahoo 360 is really a social networking tool, and those looking only to blog should consider services such as Google Blogger or SixApart Typepad instead.

Upside: For those who have a group of online friends who want to share information, Yahoo 360 has a wide range of community-building tools, such as Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Groups, and Yahoo Address Book. The Yahoo 360 My Friends page, for example, lets you view your Yahoo Messenger instant messages and see when friends are online. Yahoo 360 recently added custom themes to let you better personalize your homepage design, as well as a calendar. Plus, you can easily embed video. And to keep your blog from prying eyes or young readers, you can mark it as mature.

Downside: One problem with trying to be all things to all people is that a company rarely offers a perfect solution in each offering. Yahoo 360 may turn out to be excellent in one or more areas, but individually, its services might not be as good as those offered by competing companies. For example, SixApart TypePad might be a better blogging service, Google Gmail might offer a better Web e-mail tool, and ICQ might be the best instant messenger client. With Yahoo 360, however, you're limited to Yahoo's own offerings. And if you're a business owner looking for a collaboration tool, Yahoo 360 is definitely not for you. Instead, consider Intranets.com, eUnify.net, or some other business-focused collaboration tool with more robust features. We suspect that, in an attempt to get ahead of Microsoft, Google, and others, Yahoo may have crammed too many features into this one service.

Outlook: Yahoo 360 is currently in beta; going forward, Yahoo plans to add even more services to Yahoo 360. The company is already a major online brand, so as with Microsoft, anything Yahoo does will garner a large number of users. However, Yahoo 360 will be fighting for users among a few dozen other online services.

See more CNET content tagged:

Yahoo! 360,

Yahoo! Inc.,

Yahoo IM,

collaboration tool,

blogging

User opinions

WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW How would you rate this product?

• 3/10 Poor March 3, 2006

  by essentially (see profile)

  "Yahoo closes the circle of friends." Read more >>

• 3/10 Poor August 30, 2005

  by abeburnett (see profile)

  "Evil Yahoo cuts corners where they think they can get away with it!" Read more >>

• 5/10 Average December 1, 2005

  by awriteny (see profile)

  "nice looking blogs, but they own your content" Read more >>

• WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEWSee all 8 user opinions >>

Where to buy

Yahoo 360 (beta)

Visit the vendor's Web site for a free download.