Open Thread: Will You Keep Using MicroHoo?
February 1st, 2008 (9:09am) Mike Gunderloy 23 CommentsTweet This
The general reaction in the press so far to Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo! is that it’s practically a done deal – that the price is so high Yahoo’s management will have trouble turning down the offer, even if they want to. But for us, the important thing isn’t the press reaction, but the web worker reaction. And whatever you feel about the long, slow decline of Yahoo, many of you have a stronger reaction to Microsoft.
Yahoo touches web worker lives in many ways: we use the search and mail and groups. Beyond that, two prominent web worker darlings are Yahoo properties: Flickr and del.icio.us. If the merger goes through, they’ll become Microsoft properties. Watching Twitter this morning, it’s clear that some of the louder voices on the web aren’t happy with this prospect; there’s already talk of voting with one’s feet by moving to competing services like SmugMug and ma.gnolia. But what’s your feeling? Will you keep using Flickr even if it becomes Microsoft Windows Live Photo Sharing? Are you already thinking about pulling the plug? Or are you in “wait and see” mode, hoping for the best from the combination?
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
Will pull plug.
I guess people is overseeing things… my guess is that Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo will be near Google’s acquisition of YouTube.
hmm.. I’ve been with yahoo, since it had 6000 sites in their Netscape 0.96 compliant directory :) (yeah …not a mistake…sixty hundreds.. somewhere in `95 i think).. they went up, they did beautifully things, nevertheless, when they stopped and stagnated I stopped using their services, at least most of them, so with all sympathy, I’m waiting to see what will happen to the services, although it’s very “cool” to hate the redmond guys, at the end of the day what really matters is what products and services I get, how good they are and how cheap they are. That’s all. so .. lets see what we’ll happen
@naorm
“At the end of the day what really matters is what products and services I get”
Look at Vista and Live. That’s what you’ll get.
IMHO, M$ will ruin Yahoo! with their closed minded closed source ways.
@Lance – well… you know.. google way of rolling out buggy and incomplete features, the fact that yahoo mail is the only one that does not let *any* free offline access, buggy webmail interface, spam full messenger etc, the cheaper and quicker code development on MS platforms…
I’m not a fan of “M$”, on the contrary, I will no upgrade to Vista since the product sucks, i’ve just migrated out from MSoffice to OO since OO 2.3 has grown into real replacement.. and so on..
.. they all have their problems :)
I have SBC Yahoo, and I wonder how the Redmond acquisition would affect our services.
I’d wait, keep using what I use, and change if performance/feature set was changed to something I didn’t like. Simple as that.
Switching your services just because of who bought them doesn’t make much sense to me. There has to be a tangible reason for me to spend time researching different providers and settling into one.
“Look at Vista and Live. That’s what you’ll get.
IMHO, M$ will ruin Yahoo! with their closed minded closed source ways.”
So true (and so sad).
I’ll walk away if that happens.
Have been using a few Yahoo! services (on and off) for approx. 7 years now.
The only thing I use from Yahoo is Yahoo Messenger. The only other thing I use from Microsoft is the Visual Studio IDE. Everything else is Google for me.
So I think I’d pull the plug from using anything Yahoo! if this happens. I’d start asking my friends to switch to Google instead on the IM network, and cancel my Yahoo Voice account as well. Skype after all is a lot better in that regard.
Unless Microsoft does something other than leverage the Yahoo! user base and publicity for the stock price and actually come up with compelling new features to convince me to go back to using anything Yahoo!, then I’m sticking with Google.
I’m pulling my plug.
Darn. Flickr was cool.
I’m a big fan of Yahoo Mail. I’ll continue to keep that as my main inbox, and Yahoo as my start page. Why not I say.
Flickr just barely got over being gobbled by Yahoo. Not much difference, I’m guessing, by being gobbled by Microsoft.
I’m not a hater in any sense of the word – whereas I don’t want Microsoft to rule the world, I’d rather Google not, either.
So far, I’m adopting the wait-and-see attitude.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
P.S. I’m not exactly in love with Vista but have had no problems with it at all – INCLUDING drivers. (In fact, my biggest issue thus far is their OWN software not playing well with Vista. Hah.)
How independent has Flickr remained since Yahoo acquired them? Does Stewart have real power when it comes to driving the ship? If he does, then it’s hopeful they’ll be able to retain some autonomy with a move to M$. That being said, if I do need to yank half a decade’s worth of pictures off of Flickr, I’d most likely migrate to Zooomr.
A lot of smart (and good) people work for Microsoft. I know that can be hard to remember when you’re writing yet another hack for IE6 – but try anyway.
If this deal goes through (which most seem to predict it will) it might just be exactly what Microsoft needs to shift their culture/understanding of the web.
Business is survival and survival isn’t always pretty.
OK, what’s the best alternative to del.icio.us? Flickr, I could live without, but what about those darn bookmarks?
@tourpro: Ma.noglia is a viable alternative to del.icio.us
er, Ma.gnolia.com. Remind me not to post before my first cup of coffee!
I’m going to play with it. Not ditching del.ico.us yet, but just in case. Thanks.
Am a flickr pro user…and just renewed my account for 2 more years (yesterday!)
Although some of the smartest guys i know work at msft (including a sibling), i have very little respect for their web-strategy & offerings…
Will wait & watch before I pull the plug on flickr…and transfer all the stuff to Picasa/Picsquare…
If Microhoo happens, all that will be affected for me is MS Adcenter, Flickr and Yahoo Mail.
Adcenter and Flickr are both useful to me, so I will continue. Yahoo mail is my junkmail account. I don’t pay it much mind, but I’ll check in occassionally to make sure they don’t shut down the account.
Other than that, Apple, Google and Firefox get the lionshare of my attention these days. I don’t even use MS Word anymore.
i guess i’ll keep using flickr if things don’t go the wrong way…
i have thousands of photos there, and lots of real-world friends and colleagues who use the service.
as far as bookmarks go i’m using ma.gnolia for quite a long time, and happy with it (for the most part).
I am in the “wait and see” camp. I won’t pull the plug until I have some serious reasons to do so (partially because with 11,000 images in Flickr and a few thousand bookmarks in del.icio.us – its a heck of a plug to pull). But I have to say that this whole MS thing makes me worried.
Nothing lasts forever, but it feels so damn good when it lasts… :)
Pulling the plug from delicious is fairly easy. You can import your bookmarks right into something like Magnolia.
I’m definitely more worried about Flickr. If they try to roll it into some Windows Live Photos type thing, I’m definitely out. But if the influence is minimal, I can deal with someone else cashing the checks.