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Article

Title: Gatekeepers Respond to the Challenge of Social Networks

Author: Waters, Richard Article Type: Product Analysis
Source: Financial Times, p21(1) Publication Date: Nov 5, 2007
URL of Publication: http://www.ft.com

Gatekeepers such as Yahoo! and Google are adapting to be more open and flexible as a result of the increasing popularity of social networking sites including Facebook and MySpace. These social networking sites are noteworthy for their 'stickiness' or ability to hold users interest for longer periods of time, which may make them the new gatekeepers online. Traditional gatekeepers such as portals and search engines draw a long number of users but they do not stay long. In response to this difficulty, Yahoo! has created a family of media websites and services to hold users' attention for longer. Likewise, Google has attempted to build a large number of online applications. Some analysts claim these changes are in response to users' increasing desire to control, organize, and publish information in ways tailored to their personal preferences. Yahoo! is tapping into this trend by creating a window at the top of its homepage that delivers news from a variety of sources that eventually will be targeted to the individual user. IGoogle allows users to pick which information they wished to have displayed. Rather than a 'walled garden,' Google sees its future as a platform 'supporting a range of personalized services.' For example, OpenSocial will 'unlock' the information in social networking sites so that it is available for other applications.

Companies:
Facebook Inc Google Inc
MySpace Inc Yahoo! Inc

Products:
Facebook iGoogle MySpace
OpenSocial

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