Around the Net
Yahoo Pulls Plug On Social Tool MyBlogLog
- ReadWriteWeb et al., Wednesday, December 23, 2009 1:44 PM
The service, which shows blog writers and readers the faces and profile information of other MyBlogLog users that visit their sites, was heralded as a wildly innovative service when it first debuted in 2004, and likewise when Yahoo acquired it in 2007 for $10 million.
"It made a deal with users: Give us your personal information and we'll show you the faces of people who read your blog," writes ReadWriteWeb, which calls MyBlogLog's likely demise "downright tragic," and "likely to anger bloggers all around the web ... That was a compelling offer and the resulting data amassed could have proven invaluable, had Yahoo chosen to cultivate it and a developer ecosystem around it."
"There was a time in 2006 when MyBlogLog was arguably the hottest social networking tool online -- certainly one of them," writes Search Engine Land, adding, "MyBlogLog doesn't hold the blogging community's attention today the way it did a few years ago, but if the report is true, it will disappoint many who continue to use the service."
When Yahoo bought MyBloglog in early 2007, it did expand the service by adding basic analytics data, along with more data via paid accounts. As users flocked to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites that popularized status updates as social currency, MyBlogLog let users add information from their social streams. "But ultimately," according to Search Engine Land, "MyBlogLog never seemed to live up to its potential after the Yahoo purchase.
"Well, color me unsurprised," Jeremy Zawodny -- a respected evangelist for the open-source movement within Yahoo before joining Craigslist in mid-2008 -- writes on the news. Saying that he "genuinely had high hopes for what MyBlogLog could do both inside and outside of Yahoo," he adds, "The service has languished for years... I removed it from my site a long time ago ... It made me a little sad to do so, but it was just slowing things down and not really 'adding value' as they like to say.
Notes Andy Beal on his Marketing Pilgrim blog, "I don't quite ever remember a social network that I at first so loved, and then ultimately, so hated ... MyBlogLog had so much potential as a network that connected bloggers with their readers." Regarding Yahoo's acquisition, Beal says,
"The ink was barely dry on the contract when the service simply started sucking." One can argue that MyBlogLog suffered because of better solutions from Google and Facebook, but Beal believe the company's former co-founder Eric Marcoulier hits the nail on the head when he tells ReadWriteWeb:
"So much of your company's long term success when it's acquired is based on the amount of executive juice it has ... The only way it survives and flourishes is if you have an executive champion who promotes it internally ... Shortly after we were acquired we were transferred away from our champion and under someone who didn't feel the same way about MyBlogLog ... In those circumstances, things simply slow down."
