Enough people have commented on how Yahoo!’s Buzz is basically a knock off of Digg, so I’ll spare that angle… however what I find interesting is that Yahoo! is now echoing the fact that content has basically gone democratic: back in the day, a handful of business development executives and editors chose which links ended up on Yahoo!’s main page. Today, at least in theory, users can drive up links from Average Joe’s. Over time, this - like Digg - will be gamed and forgotten like most of YHOO’s forays these days.
Equally interesting, the other side of the coin is that distribution really has become a commodity. MSN, AOL and YHOO once commanded some 95%+ of the distribution online. I used to be a VP at a content producer that fed articles to MSN and YHOO and you were a made man once they distributed your content… but getting that took a lot of time, energy and money.
These days, Google has replaced AOL in the trifecta… but more importantly, a second layer of distribution and traffic sources have emerged: the social networks, and on top of those (or below, I guess), a third layer includes the vertical sites has emerged.
Long story short: the fact that Yahoo! has in essence opened up its main page shows just how fragmented and commoditized distribution has become.
Sumner Redstone was right: over time, new distribution channels emerge, and the value of content rises… though how the content wins in the end is now a bit more democratic.
As a content owner, you can’t help but smile about that denouement.
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