Yahoo has failed again to create a compelling social-networking service – announcing the closure of Mash on September 29.
Mash began as Mosh, but changed its name to avoid a clash with Nokia’s service of the same name. It began in beta on September 14 last year and has never been given a full launch.
Mash allows users to create online profiles and also start and change profiles for their friends. It has features similar to Facebook – a newsfeed showing what friends are up to and modules such as games and Flickr photo feeds.
Judging by the Mash blog, development seems to have ground to a halt since January, with no entries since then apart from yesterday’s closure announcement.
Mash users are urged to copy whatever content they have on the service as it will be wiped when it closes.
Yahoo says its 360 service – its previous underachieving attempt at social networking – will be unaffected by the shutdown.
The Silicon Valley company seems to have rejected the idea of a social networking service as an independent entity in favour of ‘socialising’ its established services.
“As you may remember, we launched Mash as an experimental profile service with the goal of providing an interactive and social way of connecting with others,” it said in a statement.
“Yahoo has announced we will soon be launching a new profile experience to work across the network, in the effort to make all of Yahoo! more social.”
This is the Yahoo Open Strategy, announced in April, which has similarities and ties to Google’s OpenSocial approach to combating the threats of Facebook and other social networks.
Executives are planning to give an update on the strategy just ahead of the Open Hack Day at Yahoo’s campus in two weeks’ time, where developers will be introduced to its implications.
