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MyBlogLog Coming to An End

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:16:23 +0000

Yahoo is shutting down MyBlogLog, a service acquired by the company a few years ago, that lets you see who’s been visiting your blog. It’s been known for quite some time that it would happen, but users received an email today setting the date. It said:

You have been identified as a customer of Yahoo! MyBlogLog. We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. Your agreement with Yahoo!, to the extent that it applies to the Yahoo! MyBlogLog, will terminate on May 24, 2011.

After May 24, 2011 your credit card will no longer be charged for premium services on MyBlogLog. We will refund you the unused portion of your subscription, if any. The refund will appear as a credit via the billing method we have on file for you. To make sure that your billing information is correct and up to date, visit https://billing.yahoo.com.

Cloudspace developed MyBlogLog in 2005, and in early 2007, it was acquired by Yahoo for over 10 million dollars.

Leaked Document Outlines Impending Yahoo Shutdowns

Doug Caverly — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:09:37 +0000

Fans of AltaVista, Delicious, Fire Eagle, and Yahoo Buzz – along with many other Yahoo properties – may want to devise a backup plan. A leaked corporate document indicates that a number of sites are due to be shut down, and more than a few others will in some way be merged.

A note regarding the authenticity of the Yahoo document: this does indeed seem to be the real thing. A product called myM that it mentions fell off the map a long time ago, and the scope of the "sunset" list is a little hard to swallow, but Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has threatened to fire whoever leaked it, which lends a distinct air of authenticity.

So to move on to the document itself . . . . AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Delicious, MyBlogLog, myM, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, and Yahoo Picks are all supposed to be cut.

Then Fire Eagle, FoxyTunes, Sideline, Upcoming, Yahoo Events, and Yahoo People Search are supposed to be merged.

This signals a significant change in Yahoo’s strategy. Streamlining on this scale may save the company lots of money, but could also harm its visibility and reputation while resulting in an unfortunate number of layoffs.

One other, completely speculative, thought: we may be witnessing Carol Bartz’s last stand as she tries to convince critics that she’s turning the company around and should be allowed to remain in charge.

Hat tip goes to Liz Gannes, who noted that MyBlogLog founder (and former Yahoo employee) Eric Marcoullier was the first person to link to the leaked document on Twitter.

Yahoo May Shut Down MyBlogLog Soon

Chris Crum — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:32:17 +0000

Update: Yahoo has issued the following statment regarding MyBlogLog’s future:

Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that’s an option. But there are other options as well. We know this creates some uncertainty for current MyBlogLog users. While we aren’t quite ready to share more details, we promise to keep you posted.

Original Article: Yahoo will reportedly shut down MyBlogLog in January. Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb claims to have heard from "sources close to the project" that this is the case.

"Yahoo! has let the service atrophy for years and will now put it to rest," writes Kirkpatrick. "To think that this service offered publishers and developers access to personal, demographic, taste and activity data of a website’s readers – and yet that offering has in the end gone no where – that’s downright crazy."

MyBlogLog was originally developed by Cloudspace out of Florida, but was acquired by Yahoo in January 2007. The company paid over 10 million dollars for it. According to Wikipedia, there were over 45,000 blogs subscribed to it at the time, and it currently has 275,000 registered users.

It’s no secret that Yahoo is cutting costs wherever it can. For example, earlier this year, they shut down the once popular Geocities. Just this week, they announced that they would be closing their offices for a whole week to save a little dough.

No mention of the demise of the service is mentioned on the MyBlogLog blog.

Related Articles:

> MyBlogLog – Still Relevant?

> MyBlogLog Looks for Higher Level of "Truthiness"

> Yahoo! MyBlogLog Gets Updated

Yahoo! MyBlogLog Gets Updated

Andrew Wee — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:53:27 +0000

Yahoo! MyBlogLog has included a couple of updates since the last time I took a close look at the service.

For one, sorting through “followers” and considering reciprocal “friend adding” is easier because you can filter through the list of friends in a pretty speedy fashion (especially if you have a hundred or more pending followers).

A number of weeks ago, MyBlogLog community manager Miss Tilly mentioned the introducing of a Connector widget.

It looks like an aggregator for your social networking services.

Comments

Yahoo! Answers Blog Has New Home

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:06:30 +0000

The Yahoo Answers Blog is no longer a part of Yahoo 360.

Yahoo says it has "always dreamed of a home for the blog that was more a part of the Yahoo! Answers community." The new address is www.yanswersblog.com. Yahoo says its Answers blog is a little cleaner and has useful features to improve the connection with Yahoo Answers.

The blog team describes some of the changes that users will notice. "On the upper right of the page, you’ll see a link to Yahoo! Answers as well as tools for finding information. The Search box gives you three places to look in: Blog, Web, or Answers."

"If you still don’t find what you need, you can post a question directly to Answers from the box below Search. You’ll also find subscription links for My Yahoo! and RSS feeds, blogs we like, and recent readers from the MyBlogLog community."

The Yahoo Answers Blog also has a tab at the top of the page where users can find all the posts from Ask Mike. There is a feedback tab that allows users to contact the blog team to report bugs, abuse or, make suggestions.

Under each post user can comment and add the post to del.icio.us, or go directly to Yahoo Answers.

MyBlogLog Looks for Higher Level of “Truthiness”

Stephen Pitts — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:16:38 +0000

Today, MyBlogLog added a new feature to the online blog communities… to put it simply, a validation process to verify that you are the owner of the website and have authority over the community.

Why verify?
As an owner of community on MyBlogLog, the Verified check mark is like a “seal of approval.” This shows anyone who looks at your MyBlogLog community page that the owner of the site has an active hand in the management of the community page.

How it works
When a site owner begins the verification process, we give them a bit of code to put onto their site that only someone with edit rights to the site can put into the page. Verification happens by putting the code on your site, re-publishing, and clicking the “Authenticate” button on the verification page. MyBlogLog then goes out to the site to check for the code. If it finds it, verification is complete!

Once you complete verification, you can remove the code from your site.

What it means
The verified check-mark on a community page is an indicator that the community owner has completed the verification process. Verification can only be done by authors and co-authors of a MyBlogLog community. Community pages that have been verified will flagged as such in our database and this flag will be used in the future to provide more visibility and other special mojo powers. from MyBlogLog

To start the verification process, go to the blogs you have registered and click on the verify link under the authors section in the community page.

You have two options when verifying a website or blog:

Post a link with a verification code
Add the old faithful meta tag

Once verified, you can remove the verification post or tag.

Here is a quick shot after post or tag has been verified.

Here is the new community that has been verified.

The most interesting information was from the Official MyBlogLog Blog:

In the future, we’ll use the verified flag to indicate a higher level of “truthiness” and will use it help us better promote that site.

What is meant by “truthiness“? Is is related to some kind of authority?

Is MyBlogLog working to offer new ways to “better promote” and/or “provide more visibility” to websites and blogs that maintain a MyBlogLog community?

What super “mojo powers” does Yahoo have to bestow upon MyBlogLog communities?