In 2006, Yahoo! tried to purchase a fledgling Facebook for a cool 200 million bucks. No dice. Then Google attempted “friending” the Social Media pioneer. But Facebook shut the door in its face. Four years later, these spurn courters have each unveiled their very own Facebook-influenced products: Google Buzz and Yahoo! Pulse.
Google’s Facebook wannabe launched in February with little success and plenty of blowback. Buzz offers the user a way to converse with their homies in a very Facebookesque manner––and here’s the big ta-dah–– it’s all done with Google Gmail. Okay, “ta-dah” may have been an overstatement. With the launch of Buzz, Google was hoping for the sort of defection that occurred when Facebook bested MySpace as the Social Media leader. But, as you may have noticed, that didn’t happen. In fact, almost immediately, Buzz encountered privacy snafus that virtually tanked the new entity. Google Buzz pretty much crashed and burned.
A few months later, Yahoo! unleashed its Pulse. Less ambitious than Google Buzz, Yahoo! Pulse didn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel. They just wanted a piece of the wheel to roll their way. Yahoo! Pulse allows people with a Yahoo! account to stream, read and reply to Facebook updates without ever navigating off their my Yahoo! page. But that’s as cool as it gets. Yahoo! Pulse seems to have weathered their launch without a ripple and plans to eventually become a master hub for Yahoo! Mail, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.
So what’s the lesson? It’s clear. If you can’t buy them, join them.
