All the Buzz About Yahoo.

I am a self-admitted Yahoo fanatic. I have been an avid Yahoo user since the mid 90’s and have integrated most of its services in my life.

Yahoo, a company that is supposed to be in financial troubles, has been launching all types of new applications lately. I think it is smart for Yahoo to do such, the reason they are running into market share problems is because they have grown stagnant for too long.

Yahoo has just announced the launching of its new service, Yahoo buzz, and it looks very nice. Buzz is a social news source, much like Digg, but with all the flash of Yahoo. The page is very sleek and the interface is quite simple.

The comparison to Digg is inevitable but Yahoo has the chance to bring social news to the main stream. Yahoo’s users typically tend to be slightly behind the adoption curve compared to Google. Unlike Google users they tend to be less likely to leave a service once they have adopted it.

I see potential in Yahoo’s social news service for two reasons. First, the more mainstream backing of Yahoo users. Secondly, Yahoo’s backing of Open ID is going to make all of its new services that much more accessible to late adopters.

My one hope is that Yahoo takes a little care to make sure that Buzz doesn’t fall the way of Digg. I would hate to see Yahoo’s new service turn into a trash filter like Digg. Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the stuff that comes across Digg, but much of it is just fluff and filler.

Take a look at Yahoo Buzz. Do you think it is just a Digg clone or will Yahoo finally be able to take social news mainstream? I personally think there is potential here. Am I wrong?