Why Yahoo Life Needs AIM To Succeed; Is My 2008 Prediction Coming True?

Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang along with other Yahoo executives presented their vision for where Yahoo is moving in terms of their strategy. The basic idea is to create a "social graph" (hate this term) based around the functions that Yahoo serves with Mail as the center.

"Our goal is to help you make the most of your busy life," Yang said at the start of his keynote. Hmm, isn’t that what I said in my predictions post about apps being focused on time savers and not time wasters.

Dan Farber from ZDNet notes, "Yahoo Mail (communication services) serves as the hub, but the interface also includes third-party applications and social context. Connections are contacts, and based on frequency and volume of communications email is reordered on the strength of the connections. The page also includes updates from connections, showing what is relevant rather than just relatively static inbox."

Appears that the Yahoo IM client will be part of this along with their acquisitions of Zimbra for some of the technology needed to create this new functionality. It is interesting but from what I see in the screenshots, it looks like the next version of a home page or "portal" — interesting that now it’s called a social graph.

Last week I wrote that Yahoo should acquire AOL. Today I stand firm that this deal makes sense for Yahoo and in fact, makes even more sense today. Imagine how quickly Yahoo could take AIM users and convert them into Life users. What about moving AOL software users into Life users? Again, the potential is huge and could help Yahoo move forward immediately.

Photo courtesy Dan Farber