Yahoo! Mash. Nothing really sparkling springs to mind. If you haven’t heard of it, you haven’t missed anything. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t hear about a new social site opening its doors. This time, I read where one is closing its doors – before they opened.
Mash was supposed to be Yahoo!’s answer to all the other large social sites. The problem was, Yahoo! forgot to tell the rest of the world about, or at least, to keep promoting it. It seems that Yahoo! perhaps only played around with it to see what they could achieve. They didn’t like what they saw so they canned it.
Only those who had accounts with Mash received any notification about its demise. The email was brief and to the point. As of September 29, Mash will be closed down.
There is a simple lesson to Mash’s demise. If you intend starting a social site, you need to come up with a brandable name. Let’s face it, Mash? The second lesson is to promote. If you don’t promote, no one will pay any attention and you will fail to get the user stats required to make it popular. Yahoo! Mash – now Mush – for anyone who cared anyway!


