RIP: Yahoo 360

Yahoo announced today that they would be closing their social site Yahoo 360 and opening a new social networking site Yahoo Profiles.

While Yahoo was willing to transfer a members basic info to their new web site, they were unwilling to transfer contacts, e-mail address, the blog, or any other info on a members 360 ite to the new Pofiles site.  You were to download that to your computer and then upload it to the nw site.  Wouldn’t it have been just as easy for them to transfer the info?  Wouldn’t it have been even easier for them to simply make their changes and upgrades to the 360 site in the first place and avoid all this mess?

So I have sent Yahoo an e-mail, presented below …

<begin message>

I’m sure you have your reasons, but IMHO closing Yahoo 360 is a fatal blunder.

I have e-mailed all my connections on 360 and invited them to connect with me on either MySpace or FaceBook since I don’t plan on using your new Profile pages.

During the years I was on 360 I enjoyed it; I was with you  l-o-n-g  before opening a FaceBook or MySpace account.  You were easy to use and had all I felt like I needed.  Those other sites are slower for me, and while they have some interesting applications I still utilized 360 on a daily basis.

Perhaps I would be inclined to utilize your new Profile pages if you had transfered more than just my basic info.  But no, I have to download (how?) my blog and anything else I want saved, and then upload it t the new site … why bother.  You were willing to move some of my info, but not everything and frankly you re doing little (OK, you aren’t doing anything), to make me want to move to the Profiles site.  Even my home URL has moved from a simple and easy to remember URL (http://360.yahoo.com/mktmania2004), to an un-holy lengty and un-rememborable URL.

Sorry, but I think you’ve lost a lot of users.  Since you have never responded to a single complaint or suggestion I have made in the past I know you won’t bother to respond to this, but at least I got it off my chest . . . even if it was to deaf ears.

Bye Yahoo, I’m off to FaceBook and MySpace.

<end message>

I really enjoyed Yahoo 360, even if they didn’t have all the apps you can find on MySpace and FaceBook.  Met a lot of nice people on 360 and I hope they will join me on one or both of the other sites.

I’ll stick around on 360 until they turn off the server on June 17th but then I’m moving on.  I’ll miss 360, but that will pass with time.

Good-bye my 360 friends, I hope you will join me on one of the other two social networking sites.  As Red Skelton used to say at the end of his show:  “Good night, and may God bless”.