BEIJING, Mar. 17 -- Yahoo announced it would launch Yahoo 360 March 29. The new Yahoo service blends several of its Web site's popular features with two of the Internet's fastest growing activities ¡ª blogging and social networking.

 

Yahoo announced it would launch Yahoo 360 March 29. The new Yahoo service blends several of its Web site's popular features with two of the Internet's fastest growing activities ¡ª blogging and social networking.

    The service is designed to enable Yahoo's 165 million registered users to pull content from the Web site's discussion groups, online photo albums and review section to plug into their own Web logs, or blogs, the Internet shorthand used to describe online personal journals.

    While having similarities to MSN Spaces launched by Microsoft last year, the Yahoo 360 added social networking components, such as the ability to set up a "My Friends" page, which is automatically updated, as fresh content generated by buddies goes live.

    In Yahoo Local, users can choose to view listings that have been rated or reviewed by their friends. They can also "blast" out a message to everyone in the Friends list.

MSN Spaces launched by Microsoft. Yahoo's 360 announcement comes amid growing investment in blogging and social networking technology by other Internet companies like Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

    Yahoo, which doesn't break out search revenue from other kinds of advertising, is testing contextual search on a few blog sites, but hasn't officially launched the Yahoo Publishers Network yet.

    The company plans to get feedback from the initial group, add features, and then widen the availability of the beta.

    The Yahoo 360 release will mark the first time the company provides a service to create and share Web logs, also known as blogs, in the United States.

    Yahoo's 360 announcement comes amid growing investment in blogging and social networking technology by other Internet companies like Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

    Blogs and social networking have each drawn significant user interest and venture capital dollars in recent months and have become an increasingly popular venue for self-publishing content for the Internet's large audience.

(Agencies)