Yahoo Squashes Mash

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Yahoo is shutting down what? "What’s Mash?" you ask.

Exactly.

Yahoo’s decision to pull its struggling social network site, Mash, off of life support probably won’t create too much of a fuss, since so few people knew about it anyway.

In fact, it may only be interesting to examine the reasons why the folks at Yahoo can’t seem to establish a competitor for Facebook or MySpace, even though they’ve tried repeatedly.

It made sense why Yahoo would want to enter the social networking arena. How hard could it be to compete with sites like Facebook? But they bit off more than they could chew, and it turned out that MySpace and Facebook are formidable opponents.

First, Yahoo tried to buy Facebook, but were unsuccessful, despite offering well over a billion dollars for the site. Then they tried to obtain Bebo, the social site for the 25-and-under crowd (the concept of which makes sense; since old soccer moms like me have invaded Facebook, it can’t possibly be cool anymore).

No dice.

Then they decided to launch their own social networking site. The first attempt, Yahoo 360, a fairly standard site similar to the biggies – MySpace and Facebook – just never took off. Yahoo didn’t spend a whole lot of time or money promoting the site or developing it.

After killing off an attempt at a Dodgeball or Brightkite-like mobile service called "Mixd" after only a few months, Yahoo announced last year that they were changing Yahoo 360, to "a more integrative profile experience," then officially shut it down earlier this year, presumably to focus on Mash.

But Mash never got off the ground either. Designed with features similar to both Facebook and MySpace, critics say that Mash didn’t offer anything new. MySpace and Facebook each offered unique ways to connect with others. MySpace initially began as a way for independent-label rock bands to publicize their albums and keep track of their fans, and it took off from there. Facebook had more of a yearbook quality to it and people could find old friends to connect with.

Each filled a niche that hadn’t been there previously, and Mash made no attempts to create a new niche market for itself. As one disappointed former user wrote, "There’s just no compelling reason to be on Mash."

Adding to Mash’s problems was the fact that nobody seemed to know about it. It wasn’t heavily advertised on Yahoo, perhaps out of fear of another failure. And even users with an existing Yahoo profile were not given invitations to join, which would have been one way to hook into an enormous existing user base.

So, critics say, it’s not a huge surprise that Mash didn’t work out.

It’s not good news for Yahoo, who by all accounts has had a bad year after a failed takeover bid by Microsoft, the exodus of senior executives, and falling stocks, among other woes.

Unless the fifth time’s the charm, Yahoo might want to sit back and ponder these failures and learn from mistakes before making another attempt at social networking.