Yahoo introduced news sharing on Facebook three months ago and will now roll out sharing to 26 other parts of its site including its omg entertainment news, television, movies and games. According to the AP few people are opting to share their Yahoo! activities on Facebook. In fact the article relays that Yahoo has said 12 million out of 700 million have chosen to do so. And as you may have guessed, many of these users who are sharing are 18-24.
Yahoo!’s challenge is not only to grow traffic and ad revenue but how to deal with a younger population which rarely uses e-mail but instead has decided social and SMS are the best ways for them to communicate.
It would seem this partnership with Facebook is the win/win the company needs as both parties are able to get what they need. For Facebook they get more traffic and engagement on their platform while for Yahoo, anything which increases traffic and keeps the company relevant is good for their shareholders. This partnership makes you wonder if Facebook will soon buy some pieces of Yahoo. I believe picking up the whole package would not be a smart move but some choice portals the company runs may make sense as an exploratory move to evolve Facebook into more than a social site.