Y Connect? ... I'm Really Not Sure.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) broke a story earlier this week that Yahoo will be launching a new service called Y Connect—a Facebook Connect-like feature that will allow users to log into Web sites using their Yahoo ID and easily share content with Yahoo friends.

The article goes on to talk about how this could help "spur activity on Yahoo sites" and help the company better understand their users interests. On the surface, Y Connect sounds like great news for Yahoo, a company that has been struggling as of late with flat revenues, layoffs and rumors of a merger with AOL.

But let's face it; Y Connect is not going to work. And not just because of the brand's unfortunate name.In their classic advertising book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (if you've never read it, go download it after reading this), authors Ries and Trout describe one of the most important "laws" of establishing your product in the minds of the consumer: be first. And if you can't be first, be unique. It seems Yahoo's Y Connect is neither.

Google tried something similar with Buzz (not to be confused with Yahoo Buzz ... yeah, me neither). Although not a complete disaster, Google Buzz hasn't garnered quite the following Google had hoped it would. In fact, Google executive Bradley Horowitz even admitted to Google's mishandling of the Buzz brand.

As many others have written, Y Connect is a seemingly desperate "us too" play more than an actual cutting-edge, holy-moly-this-is-really-cool tool. In fact, Y Connect is described only in the context of Facebook Connect in the WSJ article as well as other Web sites. Imagine announcing the creation of a platform that allows users to instantly post status updates in a 140 characters or less. Thanks, but I already have one of those.

And that's why this news is a bit sad—like if you saw Robert De Niro on Dancing with the Stars. Yahoo was one of the Internet innovators of the 1990s. (For many, Yahoo was the Internet.) Lately, however, they seem to be playing follower more than leader. (Does Yahoo! Mash ring a bell? No? Well, that's the point.) They just seem to be trying to keep their technological heads above water. In fact, I used to be a loyal Yahoo user. But now I see them as a slow moving dinosaur in a world that has changed too quickly for them to adapt.

It should be stated that almost everything we know so far about Y Connect has come from the lone Wall Street Journal article. But this is the Internet after all, and speculation runs rampant on even the slightest new technology whisper. 

Having said that, however, even if Y Connect is a total flop, it is not the death knell of Yahoo. Far from it. Yahoo still enjoys a strong brand name and a very respectable ranking of third in Internet traffic in the U.S. (and first in many places around the world). Revenues are flat, but they still raked in $1.13 billion last quarter after payments to partners.  It's just that you expect better things from a technological giant like Yahoo. You expect great thinking. You expect innovation. You expect, "wow!"

Of course, we'll have to wait and see. Maybe Y Connect will be different and surprise us. But I've already set my expectations for Y Connect rather low. How about you? Do you think Y Connect will be a technological winner or loser? Or is there a middle ground to be had?

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