Yahoo will turn into a giant social network

Yahoo, which manages a huge database of registered users (500 million people), is going to change the user account system for its numerous services (Flickr, Yahoo Mail, etc.). The main idea is to combine all accounts on one page, in the style of popular social services, as well as add features for communication and content sharing between users. In other words, Yahoo has decided to turn its huge user base into a giant social network, although they prefer to express it differently.

“We’re not creating another social network at all,” said Technical Director Ari Balogh to a thousand audience at the Web 2.0 Expo conference. “We are simply introducing social functionality into everything that we have.”

“We are literally in the process of a complete rewiring of Yahoo from the inside out],” said Balog. He said that the unification of profiles and the addition of social functions is part of the global strategy of YOS (Yahoo Open Strategy), as well as preparing for a possible merger with Microsoft (the second largest database of registered users).