Wayne D's Blog

I was ready to write the epitaph for Yahoo Live and then I went there last night. After a promising beginning it had degenerated to, at least on the nights I was there, a wild west, shoot 'em up, anything goes mentality. Women were targeted by roving groups of goons who would flood into a channel and demand the disrobing of the channel's owner. Requests for various things to be placed on heads were also common. Many women have made their rooms private so they don't show up on the public room screen. The sense of community that seemed to exist in the early life of Yahoo Live had disappeared. Then last night I went into the channel of a woman I had met in the heady early days. The expected rush of goon's never appeared. Why not, did they have better things to do on a Saturday night? Was it an aberration on Yahoo Live's descent into anarchy? Only time will tell.

Even it's current state of technical brokenness and dysfunctional community Yahoo Live is a fascinating place. The personalities that can survive in the maelstrom are more entertaining than anything on network TV. My advice to Yahoo, divide Yahoo Live into two sections, a heavily moderated and controlled side and an unmoderated and uncontrolled side.Users could then choose where they wanted to hang out. If Yahoo doesn't do something I expect Yahoo Live will go the way of Yahoo's user created chatrooms which were shut down by Yahoo because of their inabilty to control the activity that took place in them. Yahoo's track record doesn't give me much hope, they seem to have a hard time translating good ideas into something they can monetize. Yahoo 360 is a prime example of this, Yahoo bailed on that project and left their users hanging. I expect the same will happeen with Yahoo Live and it will be a shame.