Knowliz

Yahoo! recently started working on a Twitter clone where you can not only share text and links but also share images, music and videos.  This is called, Yahoo! Meme.  In short if you look around, this is what exactly Tumblr, Posterous, Friendfeed and other micro-blogging services let you do, but not Twitter.

Yahoo! Meme

Essentially, I found Yahoo! Meme to be exactly a replica of Tumblr taking into account some of the similarities mentioned below:

• Tumblr lets you post text, link, photos, audio and videos.  So does Meme.
  

  Tumblr Options

• You can “Reblog” anyone post on Tumblr.  And so you can “Repost” on Meme too.
• Meme supports videos from Youtube and Vimeo, so does Tumblr.
• There is no limit on the number of characters you can have in your post on Tumblr, so does Meme (kind of).  At present there is a limit of 2000 characters on Yahoo! Meme.  But that itself is quite unlimited for you to create a really big post.
• You can follow anyone on Tumblr, similarly you can on Meme.  Though that is a feature on almost all social networks.

Yahoo! Meme Explained

Having said that, Tumblr gives you even more customization options than Yahoo! Meme. It lets you customize your blog with hundreds of themes or you create your own, use your own domain name, Analytics and much more but Meme doesn’t provide any of that option.  Tumblr gives you a feel of a micro-blog whereas Yahoo! Meme don’t.

Below is a little comparison between all these services – (Source: Compete.com)

Comparison

Now looking at the data above, anyone can tell that Tumblr has around 3 Million users with over 230% yearly change whereas Yahoo! Meme has some 12000 users only.  But Yahoo! Meme has recently come into service and so we will do that comparison a little later and see how it does in near future.

Below are some of the things that Yahoo! Meme lacks as of today and the team will have to come up with for Meme to be successful in long run.  If meme really wants to be a real contender in Micro-blogging field, these are some of my suggestions:

1. Developer API is a must so that we can see some desktop and web applications based on Meme.
2. A Bookmarklet, so that it is easy to share stuff on Meme while browsing the web.
3. A way to pull in data from other similar services, so that at least I can find my friends on other social networks using Meme.
4. Cross posting to and from other social networks something like Posterous and Friendfeed do.
5. More themes and a way to customize them.
6. Privacy controls.
7. A way to upload my own mp3s rather than searching for the links on the web.
8. Ability to post through email.
9. A native iPhone app.  (I know I can use meme.yahoo.com for a mobile interface.)
10. Having the ability to autopost.  For example, a link to my latest blog post as soon as it goes live, a Youtube video link as soon as I upload or favorite something on Youtube.  Something like Facebook does.

In short, Yahoo! Meme has a long way to go before it is ever accepted into mainstream.  Otherwise it will remain in the hands of bunch of technology geeks like myself and will never be able to compete with Tumblr and Posterous, forget about Twitter.

What do you say?  Let us know you views in the comments.  Have your tried Yahoo! Meme yet.  If not, drop me a mail, I will send you an invite.  Else let us know what are your views about Yahoo! Meme.  You may also want to follow Knowliz on Yahoo! Meme, if you are there.

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