Why is Yahoo 360 going to closing down?

So, when's 360 closing down?

• (If any of my contacts are seeing this: No, I am not back on Y!A, I just have to ask this one question.) When is Yahoo 360 closing down? Rumours have been going around that it would be this year, and now people are saying late 2008. But it's December already, so how much later can you get this year? Is it going to be gone by the end of this year? I just signed up for "Profiles" today and it's just horrible. I definitely don't want that to be the replacement for 360. Even if 360 is buggy and doesn't work 100%, I don't care. After seeing profiles, the 360 we have now is just fine as-is. Profiles doesn't have a place to blog, you can only put one picture, you can't change your pages colours, and it has about a million other problems. Where is my blast? We have "status messages" instead. Oh joy, Yahoo wants to be like every other site out there! Well let me tell you this, there's a reason I chose 360 over all those other sites (facebook, myspace, etc). And that reason was because it had something to it that made it both original and WONDERFUL. And these new Profiles are just like every other site. And you wonder why that makes people want to leave. Anyways, so when if ever is 360 going to leave us? Will my friends, blogs, and comments be transitioned or dumped off at the side of the road? Thankies!

• Answer:

  The Yahoo! 360 beta service will eventually close. Yet before it does that, there will be a migration of some of its content to the new Yahoo! Profile. So, instead of social-networking via one service, they are trying to expand social-networking throughout most of their other services as well. The Y!Profile will be a centralized area of the UPS. Yahoo announced a transition of Y!360 to the UPS (i.e. the Y!Profile) in the Y!360 Team/Product Blog in October 2007. They did say "early 2008" at first in terms of the transition, then they changed the time range to "the 2nd half of 2008". There have been no further official announcements regarding timing yet in terms of closing or complete transfer. So, a more exact date of completion is unknown at this time. Unless there is an official announcement (likely through the 360 team/product blog or a reputable interview with a top Yahoo official), consider news about timing to be rumor or guesses. The Y!Profile that you set up is in its RUDIMENTARY stages, so what you see right now is just the beginning and not necessarily what will be the end result. They said in this entry (http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Ehaak.hdNZkEAzDrpa4Q--?cq=1&p=59806 ) - "We’ll migrate your profile photo, your nickname, your friends lists, blog posts and blog comments." The Y!360 part of the system hasn't been transferred over fully to the Y! Profile yet. Note that only some contacts, lists information, and basic info settings information have been migrated so far. For accurate and up-to-date news on the situation, see blogs at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/product_360 for more details. The 360 team blog is also accessible via the "Yahoo! 360 News" link in the upper right corner of your 360 space. You can post complaints or other feedback on their blog, but don't expect a personal response. See the links in these blog entries for more details on Yahoo's overall direction (i.e. Open Strategy) and UPS: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-4D4zxsg6fLRvC60pERfR7.8c?p=1168 and http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-4D4zxsg6fLRvC60pERfR7.8c?p=1236 .