14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo! 360, Yahoo! Mash, Yahoo! KickStart. All social networks, all from Yahoo! (though you might have gathered that by now), all new or closing. Nothing is really stable with the Sunnyvale, California based company. If you need another example, just check out the Yahoo Publishers Network, still in beta after many years.
Some say it's a matter of talent and continual innovation, all the networks are actually different and trying to link at some level not yet determined, others say that it's more of a lack of vision on behalf of Yahoo!. Not that it matters, but I'm with the second group. It seems to me like a pointless Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the mountain to just throw out there new and newer versions of the same social network when simple product continuity and support would probably do the trick. Doesn't it look like their campaign at the moment is to buy ten projects instead of building a great one? Eventually, one of the ten must strike lucky and grow to be a flickr.
The features of the new Inbox 2.0 look appealing; it will be able to calculate - depending on the rate at which you exchange email and instant messages with another contact - the level of importance which that person presents and display his/her messages at the top of the list; also, a profile page for everyone will be featured, and feeds with news and information about friends will be added. Great in theory, all that remains now is to watch it grow and pray that it will not prove to be another failure, like 360, that will compromise the best thing that Yahoo! has to offer at the moment - its email service.
It will be very interesting to follow the project because there is a big difference between the people that want to use a mail service and those who are in favor of a social profile, as privacy is of the utmost importance to the former and a welcome feature for the latter.
If this happens - and, between you and me, it will happen, no mistake about that -, everybody will be affected by it: "This isn't a separate product," Brad Garlinghouse, who runs the communication and community products for Yahoo!, said. "This is an integration that has to be seamless to the user." Best of luck with that!