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Social networking sites like Facebook are increasingly offering the same applications found in Yahoo!, but the latter’s executives argue this will not drive away its users.
Instead, top Yahoo! executives, who held a short briefing with local media in a visit to Manila, stressed that the company is in fact embracing social networking as it introduces new features in tools like Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail.
"Does it make sense to reinvent the wheel inside social networking services? Or do we take such services and instead integrate them into Yahoo!?," answered Scott Dietzen, Yahoo! senior vice president for global communications products.
"I believe it is much easier for us to embrace new forms of social networking than the other way around," Dietzen added, when asked by INQUIRER.net whether Yahoo! feels threatened by social networks like Facebook.
Yahoo! has been criticized many times by analysts for getting left behind in the social networking train. Two years ago, it announced a billion-dollar bid for then-emerging social networking site Facebook but was thwarted.
Microsoft, a rival in the online search business, then acquired a five-percent stake in Facebook for a reported $245 million, effectively increasing Facebook's market valuation.
But Dietzen further argued that Facebook, in particular, is still "just getting started" in terms of offering communication tools for users.
By and large, Yahoo! is counting on its existing user base, which is now more than 500 million worldwide, according to the company.
Yahoo! is looking to harness what it calls "social connections" among its millions of users by introducing new features in Mail and Messenger, in particular, that allow them to collaborate better and share content easier.
"The future of social networking isn't so much about these destinations on the Web but more about such functionalities in available applications," Dietzen said. "We are embracing social networking in our products."
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