Yahoo plans to smash Mash, just one year after launching the new profile service. Yahoo describes Mash as a new approach to users’ profiles that brings people together and keeps things interesting.
Mash users are being told that Mash will close on Sept. 29. The company plans to consolidate what it has learned with Mash into a new profile experience.
“We launched Mash as an experimental profile service with the goal of providing an interactive and social way of connecting with others,” said Yahoo spokesperson Devon Corvasce. “Yahoo has announced we will soon be launching a new profile experience (an upgrade to profiles.yahoo.com) to work across the network, in the effort to make all of Yahoo more social.”
Asked when the new service would launch, Corvasce said, “At this time, we are not publicly discussing the launch date of the new profile experience. You can look forward to seeing it in coming months.”
Yahoo first began testing the Mash service is September 2007, making its foray into social networking. Yahoo offered the service to selected people outside of Yahoo’s walls. Some observers speculated Yahoo offered the beta service after its expected purchase of Facebook failed.
Mash includes similar features to Facebook, MySpace, and My Yahoo. Mash users are able to create and customize a profile by filling Web pages with information, add modules such as photos and Web games, and add applications such as Flickr RSS, Common Friends, Asteroids, PimpMyPet, Kaleidescope and more. Friends are also able to make changes to the user’s page.
The intent was to extend features of the experimental Mash into other Yahoo services, according to the company. Yahoo also hinted about adding social-networking functions to its e-mail service.
A Yahoo community manager said earlier this year that users’ dedication to mashing had helped the community…