Yahoo surrenders to Facebook

Posted on by Ryan Deiss in Social Media

I talk a lot about how Facebook has become a true rival of Google when it comes to advertising, and they really have.  Well, let’s not forget the others that Facebook has left in the dust.  Specifically, it’s Yahoo that just put up the white flag of surrender to Facebook and they decided to work with them instead of against them.

Yahoo recently refocused their mission and stated that it wants to be “a central hub for people’s online lives” especially in the realm of social media. BUT they know that Facebook has the market seriously cornered.

So how did they decide to go about this new mission?

They are joining forces with the people that previously put the smack down on them and they’re deepening their integration with Facebook.  This means that Yahoo users will now be able to view their Facebook news feed right from the comfort of their Yahoo homepage.  They’ll also be able to connect their accounts so they can view and share info across both networks.

Yahoo got SMART and added a feature to the new integration effort in response to recent Facebook privacy policy mess-ups.  Yahoo now has a central dashboard that allows users to control the privacy settings on the info they share from external accounts like Facebook.

For now, I can’t think of a better move for Yahoo.  Facebook has a huge amount of momentum rolling in the Social Media realm, and for now there really isn’t any stopping them.  Deciding to use Facebook’s brand to push their own is pretty ‘ninja’ if you ask me.

Yahoo can stop struggling to create it’s own social media world and just ride the wave of Facebook, since it’s definitely big enough.

With that said, I’m not sure this will save Yahoo’s from becoming a total ‘has been’. What’s your opinion? Comment below and let me know.

Tags: facebook, integration, merger, yahoo