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About Me

Hey there! I live in Singapore and I work in technology. I (mostly) post about internet, emerging technologies, and gadgets. Sometimes, if I can't help it, I also write about current events in the Indonesia and Singapore region.

 

Buzz proves the difference between Google and Yahoo is execution

When I read the leaked news about Google Buzz, I was reminded of Yahoo's effort in social networking a few months before. Yahoo Updates is an offering that integrates social networking service with Yahoo Mail and other Yahoo sites. I remember writing about Yahoo Updates then, expressing my lack of confidence in Yahoo. 

When Google Buzz was announced, Yahoo issued a response to highlight and remind everybody about Yahoo Updates. To Yahoo's credit, they did come up with the email-plus-social-network idea first. They had a good business plan. It was a good decision by Yahoo to leverage on their strength, which is email (Yahoo Mail is in the top 2 largest web mail providers), and it made business sense for Yahoo to hop on the social networking wave. 

But why didn't Yahoo Update generate as much excitement as Google Buzz when it came out? Let's look at the components:

  1. Yahoo Mail is slow and has terrible spam filter. I have to check my Spam folder every once in a while because so many of my legitimate emails go in there. I still use Yahoo Mail, but only for web sign ups which I suspect will give me spam anyway. Yahoo Mail may still be number one in terms of users, but I doubt many people truly use it.
  2. Yahoo has terrible mobile apps. Our lives are very much on the go these days and I can't rely on Yahoo when I'm not in front of my desktop PC.
  3. To make matters worse, Yahoo has no reliable sync programs to mobile platforms. Yahoo Updates uses Yahoo Contacts. I actually have entries in my Yahoo Contacts (and Yahoo Calendar), but they are duplicated two or three times due to bad synchronization. I don't even bother to correct them. Why bother?
I'm a big social media junkie, but because of the reasons above, I didn't even bother to play around in Yahoo Updates. I don't think a lot of people did either.

Objectively speaking, what does Google Buzz have over Yahoo Updates in terms of features? Geolocation is one thing, but not much else. The big difference is that people actually use Google products. Users love Gmail and because of that, they are willing to try Buzz. And that is the reason why, on the internet, execution is everything -- not ideas.

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