Yahoo Pulse: Yet another mistake by Yahoo?

A look at Yahoo Pulse which is a forum to share pictures, messages, blogs, links and much more. But has Yahoo come to the party too later and will Pulse be another mistake in Yahoos long list of mistakes.

A great way to get an idea about how well a internet company is doing would be to read tech blogs. The more the number of times a company and its services are reviewed and mentioned, you can be assured that the company is building and maintaining a momentum. This is where Yahoo lags behind against almost every big internet brand.

I came across Yahoo Pulse and was told that it would rival Google Buzz. So I decided to check it out and mid-way realized that this might be another mistake by Yahoo.

What is Yahoo Pulse?

If you are familiar to Google Buzz which almost everyone is thanks to them embedding it on Gmail, you will find Yahoo Pulse pretty similar to Buzz. Pulse does have better features when it comes to privacy as atleast at this moment I do not see it in your Yahoo Inbox by default.

So basically Yahoo Pulse allows you to share photos, messages, videos and even sync your Facebook wall messages with your Yahoo contacts without the need for leaving the Yahoo environment. Great! But the worrying part is how many still want to remain in the Yahoo environment?

Why Yahoo Pulse can rock.

Yahoo Pulse plans to allow users to tap into Facebook. To the extent that we might be able to play Mafia Wars and Farmville along with use all features of Facebook through Yahoo Pulse. This further being integrated with Yahoo Mail might mean a user would not need to visit another website at all and use Yahoo for all purposes.

This is great news for loyal Yahoo users and might improve some numbers.

Why Yahoo Pulse will not rock.

I remember using Yahoo Meme a couple of times. It was supposed to rival Twitter and to be honest it has better features than Twitter does. But Twitter had cornered the market when it came to micro-blogging. Yahoo Pulse will meet a similar fate to Yahoo Meme as it is not offering something newer for users but just something better.

Also Yahoo concentrating on allowing its users get more Facebook updates seems to be a short term view. Yahoo cannot allow users to use Facebook on one side from its own environment and still compete with Facebook. It is like a Twitter application competing with Twitter!

It just will not succeed as Yahoo is building a growth strategy which is dependent on Facebook’s success.

So are you using Yahoo Pulse? Do you think Yahoo Pulse could save Yahoo the company or will it turn out to be another famous mistake by Yahoo? Do drop in your comments.

9 Comments

sheetal June 22, 2010

Nice one… i just came to know about pulse.. and the application which yahoo is developing through which one can play games also on fb will really rock the market..trust me because the games like farmville, mafiawar and all had made public so addicted on facebook.

Anshul June 22, 2010

As you said, these games have made public fb addict..why will someone use yahoo to play games on fb, when they can do it directly by logging in to fb :P..

Instead of relying on the success of a 3rd party to grow, Yahoo should come up with new innovations..

Nice observation Aditya.. 🙂

Aditya Kane June 22, 2010

Thanks Anshul, This strategy will only keep old customer happy to an extent but might not pull in newer users.

ravi June 22, 2010

Yahoo pulse is another useless service by yahoo.I have tried out it!

Sarveshwar July 9, 2010

Yahoo is so much desperate!! Y! Go, Y! 360, Y! Profile, Y! MeMe, Y! This, Y! That and now Y! Pulse.. Just another failure..

What they can try is improve their user interface for Y! Mail… Have better lookin’ Messenger program… Although it is a nice useful program, Y! Messenger has such a ugly UI… One thing I like is their mobile site.. It looks so nice…

shani July 13, 2010

I am incensed and my blood is boiling to the point of eruption that Pulse set “share views” as a default. I didn’t even know about it until I noticed that I was reading my cousin’s personal information. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Give us back our privacy!

Abhishek December 11, 2011

I fully support ur viewpoint Shani.I had this contact of mine (actually just 1)and i used to comment (her) wall and see her posts. thnx to pulse i m not able to view her profile.i m seriusly outraged now !!!!!! BIG TIME !!!!!!

Jayant October 21, 2010

I hate Yahoo! Pulse

It’s just a crap… 🙁 x|

Dude December 8, 2010

I left yahoo mail plus because of this… why would I pay to have my privacy violated? Why would contacts, from my address book, who don’t need to know about each other be exposed to each other? Why were all these setting turned on and exposed by default?