• GigaOm , Tuesday, March 24, 2009 11:30 AM

Is imitation really the highest form of flattery? If so, Facebook and Twitter should feel honored (not threatened) that aging Web giants Yahoo and AOL are preparing news feed offerings for some of their more popular Web services. For those unfamiliar with the surging phenomenon, news feeds, also called "life streaming" services, allow users to broadcast their daily lives via status updates.

According to GigaOm's Om Malik, Yahoo is working a life-streaming product called Yahoo Updates, while AOL is working on a product called "Site Social." However, unlike Facebook and Twitter, Yahoo is planning to integrate the new tools with its popular email service. This is in line with Yahoo's goal to make boring old email more social. In a similar move, AOL will introduce its massive ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger client bases to life streaming using a tab-like structure to aggregate information from various sources. Malik says the technology is based on the news feed currently offered on Bebo, the social network that AOL bought for $850 million last year. Expect more info on both services in the coming months.

Interestingly, Malik says that AOL is planning to support Facebook Connect, Twitter and Google's OpenSocial. AOL execs said the focus will be on content -- Time Warner certainly has a lot of content properties that would be boosted by content discovery and sharing. Says Malik: "Whatever form AOL and Yahoo's life-streaming efforts take, there's no denying that the post-broadband era needs a different kind of media consumption paradigm."

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