Thinking about Yahoo! 360

There's been much talk recently about the new Yahoo! 360 beta. They've tried to capitalize on the type of buzz that Orkut and Gmail got, and the service at this point is invite-only. Which means that you'll encounter a whole lot of errors when you try to surf around: 360.yahoo.com

John Batelle has posted about it, and he includes a link to Randy Farmer's Yahoo! 360 page. Randy is the head of the Yahoo! Community Projects team...

I've been looking around, and my first reaction is good. This is MUCH more comprehensive than many other communities that could be seen as competitors. Think Myspace on steriods.

However, I've got a couple gripes.

1.) No unique URL: Why wouldn't you want to give users of Yahoo! 360 a unique URL? I think Randy should have the following URL: 360.yahoo.com/randyfarmer/. That way, he can tell his friends about it, can put a link in his email signature, whatever the heck he wants. It not only means ease of use, but it means that Randy's bringing in more traffic to Yahoo.

2.) No trackback or comments on the blog: This goes without saying.

3.) Numerous interface design issues: I'm not sure how much customization each user has, but Randy's blog, for instance, has the RSS feed link only at the very bottom of the page, when you go to his blog. There also seem to be issues with text wrapping in the right column of his main page, etc...

This next one is the big gripe...

4.) Exclusively Yahoo: Surely we can't expect a company like Yahoo! not to shill their own products, but let's be realistic. Most users are not going to be this Yahoo!-centric. What if I don't use Yahoo IM, and use MSN instead? While I understand that for many users this tool may convince me to switch to a Yahoo! service, this whole Yahoo! 360 thing would be a heck of a lot more impressive if it was a tool that allowed me to aggregate all my preferred services. I know this is a Utopian vision, like asking Santa for world peace, but the present iteration of the Yahoo! 360 beta just seems, well... too much Yahoo! I'd like to see a little more open source spirit thrown in the mix.

More to come in this discussion...