Yahoo ‘Mash’ Signs Out From Social Networking

Posted by Vaibhav

September 2, 2008

Competition in the social networking world has increased to such an extent that even major online portals have started facing the heat. One such example is Yahoo, who has finally given up and announced the withdrawal of its social networking site ‘Mash’ on September 29 this year.

With this exit, the existing members of Mash will no longer be able to access their profiles, to which Yahoo has notified them to save any data beforehand, which they wish to keep for the future.

The Sunnyvale, California-based search giant confirmed that it will thrash Mash, which was introduced to make Yahoo more socially acceptable in the online world. Though the main idea was to provide users with a new service on the same lines just like Facebook and MySpace, Yahoo miserably failed to penetrate the competition.

This is not the first time Yahoo faced disappointment in the social networking arena. It’s earlier product ‘Yahoo 360’ too did not reach the benchmark created by other networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Google’s Orkut, etc.

The Short Story of Mash:

Following the failure of ‘Yahoo 360’ and a failed attempt to buy Facebook, Yahoo decided to introduce Mash to selected people last year. The move seemed to be strategic as it boasted of features similar to that of popular social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Wikipedia. Also, the brand power of Yahoo contributed as a major advantage to the company.

Initially named Mosh, it began by testing the service in September last year, but changed its name realizing that Nokia’s service too had the same name. On September 14 previous year, it began in beta but has never been given a complete launch till date.

The users are enabled to create their profiles as well as start and change profiles for their pals. It comprises of a newsfeed feature (similar to Facebook), where the user can see what his/her friends are up to, along with modules like games and Flickr photo feeds.

A Yahoo spokesperson said Mash was launched as an experimental profile service, aiming to provide an interactive and social way of bridging distances between people. The online company has announced a ‘new profile experience’ launch to be made shortly, which is an upgrade to profiles.yahoo.com, so as to function across the network with intention to make Yahoo more social. However, the launch period was not disclosed.

In an effort to maintain cordial relations with the Mash members, Yahoo sent an e-mail to all, thanking them for trying out the Mash Beta Service and hoped that they all had lots of fun. Also, it confirmed that the company would close down Mash on September 29 this year, making the existing profiles of the members unavailable forever.

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