Yahoo, the WTF Web property of the past few years, has finally found its identity. And it’s called Facebook. Yahoo has announced an ‘all in’ integration strategy with Facebook Connect, providing direct access to Facebook from Yahoo’s home page, mail client and 15 other properties. They call it Yahoo Pulse. I call it Facebook Plus.
I admit to a little dog piling on Yahoo. Yahoo’s seemingly directionless wanderings have a lot of people wondering what the heck Yahoo is anymore. Are they about search or aren’t they? (Steve Ballmer hopes so.) Are they about content creation or aren’t they? The on-again, off-again dealings with Microsoft. All of it has, at best, left people scratching their heads about Yahoo’s future. At worst, it’s inspired people to walk away fed up or, worse yet, ambivalent.
And, now, Yahoo’s paved that path directly to Facebook. I, for one, think Yahoo still creates great content. I frequently share that content on Facebook already. Perhaps they think streamlining that process stands to generate more views for Yahoo. Maybe they’re right. Will be interesting to see how this pans out. At least for now, it seems yet another validation of my belief that all roads lead to Facebook.