“Yahoo’s Undercover Social Network”

http://blogs.business2.com/utilitybelt/2007/04/yahoos_undercov.html

In the world of Internet social networks, whose dominant participants are those such as Myspace and Match.com, a new player has emerged. According to the article “Yahoo’s Undercover Social Network,” Yahoo Answers is the fastest growing component of Yahoo. In the past year Yahoo Answers has more than quadrupled its number of users. In the time span of one year, Yahoo Answers has increased its audience from 2.3 millions users to 15.7 million users, not bad compared to another major player in the network: Facebook.com, which can claim about 19 million users per month. (Although one point to make note of is that the browsing of Facebook.com is limited to members only, while Yahoo Answers is not.)

The article ponders a reason behind this enormous increase in the members of the Yahoo Answers network. One possible reason is the fact that Google is no longer participating in the Answers service. The increase in Yahoo’s users may in part, be thanks to former Google members joining the Yahoo network. However, the more significant reason might be Yahoo Answers’ new feature: “invite a friend.” With this new addition members of the network can now “invite” their friends to join, increasing the number of nodes in the network. Yahoo Answers will expand with the addition of the new nodes that join on their own, but the network will further expand with the addition of new nodes that existing nodes invite to join the network. With the entrance of all these new nodes, connections can be made between existing nodes and new nodes, creating edges and bridges, and possibly further increasing the size of the network.

Another important point that the article makes note of is the question topics that are being asked in Answer networks such as Yahoo Answers and Amazon’s Askville, a new network that has also joined the Answers business. The types of discussions that are being had and the questions that are being asked in these networks are of another variety than that of the topics being discussed in Facebook or Myspace. The article points out that not only are these networks expanding the size of their own networks, they are expanding the entire ‘market’ of these social networks as well.