KNIGHT
RIDDER NEWSPAPERS -- Dec 28 -- Davis, a media professor at UC Berkeley,
has been given the keys to perhaps the biggest real-world lab in the
world, Yahoo. As head of
Yahoo's new social media research lab in Berkeley, Davis has been
tasked with helping Yahoo chart a course through the rapidly evolving
world of "social media" from blogs and social networking services to
interactive mobile devices. Yahoo is aiming to build a
technological playground where individuals can create and share their
own content, from audio "podcasts" and blogs to message groups and
photo albums. Yahoo's focus has expanded to a "social search"
concept. It allows people to search the subset of Web sites that
friends and acquaintances have found interesting and annotated with
their thoughts and comments. Yahoo launched a social networking
and blogging service called 360 this year, recently acquired Upcoming.org,
an events calendar assembled entirely by the public, and has plans to
let people create and share their own audio podcasts. It recently began
including blog content in its news section, elevating grass-roots
journalism and writing closer to mainstream media. FULL ARTICLE @ MIDDLE EAST NORTH AFRICA FINANCIAL NETWORK NEWS