Yahoo is planning on offering a blog service called Yahoo 360 that will be more like MSN Spaces than Google’s Blogger.com. Beta testing starts March 29 and will offer initial users the option of inviting friends to use the service, similar to how Google promoted Gmail.
Users will be able to draw upon content from other Yahoo services as well as share posts and photos of their own. Yahoo 360 is part blogging and part social networking.
“It’s really about keeping connected to people you know,” said Julie Herendeen, vice president for network services at Yahoo. “Yahoo 360 allows consumers to conveniently connect with the people they care about by creating and sharing blogs, photos and other content across Yahoo.”
Over 32 million people in the US read blogs. With Yahoo’s 30 million users, the overall number of blog publishers and readers could increase substantially with the Yahoo 360 service.
