Defrag

Posted on April 25, 2008

Just as you defrag your hard drive to optimize accessing data and speeding the process of doing so, Yahoo has announced its equivalent by introducing the basic structure of plans to defragment its network of users. 500 millions strong is how big that user base is — it’s big enough to make or break a company and Yahoo intends to socialize the masses.

Along the way with purchases like Flickr and del.icio.us, you sometimes wondered where they were heading. Maybe now the big picture is starting to be formed form all the little pixels of purchase. And what is coming together could be a work of art indeed….or else finish them off.

Some might think this is an attempt to anti the Microsoft buyout or force a bigger offer by making other potential suitors look at them more carefully, but in reality, I believe this is just a timely announcement of plans that have been shaped and worked on for some time.

What Yahoo intends is to create the biggest social networking outfit yet, and that by far. In comparison, MySpace has 100 million users and Facebook only 60 million. These socialites who appear so dominating would be dwarfed, overnight practically, by the half a billion users that Yahoo would bring into the community with a flip of a switch.

The problem, of course, is that Yahoo isn’t building a network from the ground up where changes can be made along the way, but rather trying to find a fulcrum point to move a load of folks at one time as they redesign their current positions.

Do it wrong, and watch the whole thing collapse…..do it right, and presto, chango!…a new, improved Yahoo. And if right, Microsoft, thy offer be low.