From Carl:

Received via email and posted on the 360 team blog:

Dear Yahoo! Mash member,

Thank you for trying out our Mash Beta service. We hope you had fun with it.

Please note that we will shut down Mash on September 29, 2008. As a result, your current profile on Mash will no longer be available. We strongly recommend that you return to http://mash.yahoo.com and copy the content that you wish to save onto a separate document.

For a list of FAQs, please refer to the Mash Help Page.

Thanks for trying out Mash!

Matt Warburton

Yahoo! Community Manager

______________________________________

From Astra:

Well, folks, it's happened.

After a year (the last eight months of which have been largely a non-event), Yahoo has decided to kill off its 'Mash' product.

Those of you who remember know that 'Mash' created quite a stir last September - it lead to a 1,700-signature online petition (started by Mystie and myself - this blog is actually the outgrowth of that petition).

The petition was mentioned in Wikipedia. However, it did no good, and Yahoo allowed 360 to suffer what might well be recorded as one of the most-undignified demises in cyberspace.

Will we see a 360 replacement? I'm thinking they'll probably not roll anything out until later in the year.

The reason?

It's simple. First, they didn't promise anything until fourth-quarter. (You might remember that prior to their most-recent promise, they promised a replacement in Q1 of '08 - which date unceremoniously came-and-went without so much as a whisper.

Mr. Warburton announced this summer that we'd see a replacement in Q4.

Second, Yahoo is going through some serious internal issues - the departure of key personnel; an attempted takeover by Microsoft, and a lot of other things have kept Yahoo's management pretty busy.

Third, they've never kept a promise related to 360. Why start now?

(Personally, I'm hoping for something decent. They've got some good ideas....)

____________________

(For more information, please go to the 'Mash' blog, located here.

On the 9^th, true to their word, Yahoo in the person of Matt Warburton) gave us an update.

First off, it took four tries to even read the blog – the database on the 360 servers hasn’t been reindexed in so long (most of you have noticed that when you try to find a post, you’re usually taken to one which predates the one you’ve selected, or get the ‘Cannot Find Server’ message) – this is quite apparently the case with the Yahoo Product Blog itself.

Matt did come out and give us one definitive. “…Here’s the latest news on the transition from your 360 page to your new profile on Yahoo!: It will be taking place sometime in the second half of 2008. We don’t have specifics on the date to share just yet, but you’ll be among the first to know. For now just keep this in mind: 2nd half ’08….” Any idea you might have had that Yahoo was going to stick even remotely to its original date of Q1 ’08 have been thoroughly disabused by that statement.

They’ve got ambitious plans for the new profile – and if you’re not aware of the concepts of Web 2.0, go here and learn - - this article will give you some concepts and theories by which you can frame future discussions.

Yahoo is planning to make some sweeping changes to its profile, which will act as a gateway/portal to all of Yahoo’s services. “…For example, your Profile will be integrated into the new Yahoo! Mail welcome page which will surface messages from the people who matter to you most. Additionally, you will see Updates from your important connections helping you to discover new content and activities in real-time….”

There’s a problem with this, however.

Yahoo ‘overhauled’ their mail service some time ago, and it doesn’t even load half the time when you click on your mail-tool; in fact, the service is now so poor that they actually have a secondary link, which says, “Yahoo Mail seems to be taking some time to load. Click here for Yahoo Mail ‘Classic’.”

Either they know something we don’t, or they’re planning some additional changes to the new Yahoo Mail which will clean up the mess. Otherwise, the overall effect will be like taking a pellet-gun to your light-fixture, then working the switch for half-an-hour, all the while asking yourself “Why doesn’t the light come on?”

While skirting the obvious question (“What happened to your original schedule?”), Matt also went on to offer some quasi-comforting news: “Finally, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of what this means to you and your 360 account. We’ll migrate your profile photo, your nickname, your friends lists, blog posts and blog comments….”

Well, that’s something.

References:

Web 2.0 (Wikipedia)

Update on Transition and Timing (360 Product Blog; 5/9/08)

Yahoo Rewiring Itself from the Inside Out (CNet News; April; 2008)

Yahoo Open Strategy (Yodel Anecdotal; April, 2008)

(…or, ‘Why The Future Starts in Vietnam’….)

Vietnam?

That’s right.

Turns out that Yahoo has released a product called “360 Plus” in Vietnam – it’s modular, and proves out to be a LOT easier to use (if the initial information is correct - you can read the 'blast' link above, as well as the links below, in yellow).

If you go here and read the Q&A, it appears that the product was launched only recently, but is very well received, giving a boost to Yahoo’s presence in that growing country.

The sample page (yes, it’s in Vietnamese) is here.

While it looks pretty basic (no ‘blast’; no ‘quick comments’; no friends-sidebar or other 360-like attributes), it’s also modular – which leads me to believe that additional modules are available.

My hope?

That they’ll introduce something like this worldwide – something which, in the end, will correct the many bugs in 360 and finally give us a useable product that’s out of beta.

Whither the UPS….

Officially, I'm disappointed in Yahoo.

There are a lot of people now raising a last-ditch effort to get Yahoo's attention to save Y/360 (you've probably seen the wallpaper; "I Want My 360!"). These folks are as we were in October; passionate about saving what was to us the ideal social-networking site; one which was heavy on the writing and interpersonal communication, and light on the shiny-things (videos, sparklies, and other dreck).

Multiply gave most of us a place to land, but not to continue. The 'feel' is different -- it's not that cerebral, and the interface doesn't lend itself to making a blog or other writing the centerpoint of things.

I know this is true in my own case, and I've heard it from others, also - the writing isn't the message on other sites; it's just not there.

Recently, I joined a Multiply 'group' which had been founded to promote some of the kind of writing I like to do. I posted one of my series' there (on 360, last July, it received over 100 comments).

Not one on Multiply.

While my Multiply 'friends' are more cerebral than most, for whatever reason, there's just not the sense of community. Plug-in modules don't lend themselves to promoting a blog.

Yahoo 'responded' with Mash - which they've told us was experimental, and if recent commentary and user-hits are any indication, is now all but dead.

They've given us "Shine" (a site for women, which as one of its inagural articles 'treated' us to a primer on how-to-prey-on-teenage-boys - if one happens to be an older woman).

They've given us MyBlogLog - which is a nice idea, but isn't a replacement for 360.

They've given us promises - plenty of those - regarding the Universal Profile System, which was supposed to be up and running no later than the end of first quarter.

Unfortunately, none of these has come anywhere near close to replacing 360.

360 is a broken machine. We all know that, and it's sad. But we're not getting anything from Yahoo; they're not interested in us die-hards, because there just Aren't That Many Of Us left.

Whither now?

Many have quit blogging altogether. I've cut back my own writing, partially in response to Real Life, and partially because the 'feel' on any of the other sites just isn't the same.

I've been a supporter of Yahoo through my entire time as a 'feature'. After a point, however, one begins to look a tad ridiculous; the playground is empty, and I feel like the kid in the Rockwell painting - the one who's holding a bat, a ball, and a mitt - and the field is empty, with no one to play.

I totally did not see this coming. Yahoo must be more serious that I thought about staying away from Microsoft.

On the other hand, Yahoo has been busy in other areas. They’ve introduced a Digg imitator called Buzz, a webcam hosting service called Live and a new website aimed at woman called Shine. They’ve also been involved in supporting a new web standard called OpenSocial.

In the meantime, Yahoo’s existing social network services like 360 and Mash continue to whither and die. I have Matt Warburton’s email address and direct dial number. I have products managers from Mash on my listof friends there. I still get over 1600 hits a day on my personal 360 page because they link to an article I wrote after I spoke with Matt Warburton, but can I get any information? Nope. Mash is a ghost town without a blog and 360 is a dying community full of bugs.

So if anybody from Yahoo reading this, I am fed up. Since October 2007, we have dealt with a bare usable blogging platform with promises of a “universal profile system” to be introduced in “early 2008” that we have yet to see. The way you’ve handled this whole situation does not exactly inspire my confidence. I pay for a number of Yahoo services, including LAUNCHcast, Flickr and your web hosting service. I can’t see how a merger with Microsoft could be beneficial for consumers, so please give me a good reason to remain your customer. A good start might be actually communicating with us and giving us a time line for what will happen in the future with out blogs and profiles.

With lukewarm regards,

Carl