Today Yahoo and Facebook are set to announce that they are joining forces so that users can link their accounts and share information more easily across both networks. Fans of social media site Facebook will now be able to follow updates from the Yahoo homepage and anyone who uses Yahoo sites such as Flickr can update their Facebook page at the tick of a box. According to industry reports the union has been in part to prevent users of Yahoo social media sites defecting to Facebook altogether.
Social Media
This is of course good news for social media socialites as it makes sharing information easier, and it means that it is not necessary to go back and forth to keep up with maintaining an online presence. Being able to control social media sharing from one page will further boost the impact optimising for such platforms can have on revenue from advertising – something that Yahoo are bound to try and cash in on.
Over 400 million people use Facebook, and industry insiders are speculating that the unification will benefit Facebook more than Yahoo, especially as Yahoo have introduced attractive and transparent privacy options, a much publicised hurdle for Facebook over the last few weeks. There is also speculation abound over how long it may be before Facbook make an offer to buy out Yahoo, which could allow them to gain a dominant foothold in social search.
Yahoo
It has been a long time since Yahoo was the preferred search engine, and although this move is predicted to weaken the Yahoo brand further, it could in fact return the company to it’s original conception, to act as a hub for internet users by integrating information. Whether this will happen under the banner of Yahoo! or Facebook remains to be seen.
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