I don’t know if Inbox 2.0, Open Social, or even MySpace and FaceBook will be lasting online paradigms, but there is a bubble, it is under increasing pressure, and the nature of bubbles under pressure is explosive (and not in the happy growth way).
Personally, the only massive, gaping hole I see in this space if for a network which, rather than taking user data and selling it for ad revenue, invites the user into the business as an affiliate (a la Amazon Associates or Google AdSense).
I mean, I follow these products for a living, and I can’t keep their strategies straight. Or even figure out if there is a strategy. If Inbox 2.0 is part of Yahoo’s big vision for the future, then tell us more than the bits about the news feed and profile pages. Tell us how it can change the entire company, as OpenSocial appears poised to do with Google. And if it’s just an experiment, why screw around with one of your biggest assets.
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