These days you don’t have to be a Silicon Valley Social Media Expert to wake up every morning with an urge to update your status on Facebook or follow the latest Tweets on your startup of choice. But what happens if you actually are a Social Media devotee who lives in Iran, a county in which most online communities are forbidden and offline community events (unless religiously focused) are strongly discouraged?
As an Iranian Social Media professional I was particularly curious about this question—knowing that despite government restrictions, Iran’s online presence continues to grow. With over 100,000 active weblogs, Iran is the third largest blogging country in the world. Enthusiasts actively search and find ways to access forbidden and filtered sites such as Orkut, MySpace and Facebook using various methods and proxies. It was really interesting for me to identify the most common alternative to the challenge of forbidden social tools: Yahoo 360! (A personal communication portal operated by Yahoo, right here in Silicon Valley).
Yahoo 360 is one of the few social networking sites that is not filtered in Iran. Almost every single Iranian online community aficionado I spoke to boasted about their usage of a Yahoo 360 account–many as the main tool for sharing their photos, some as a means of networking, and the majority using it as their main blogging platform. I personally had never taken the time to fully complete my Yahoo 360 account, knowing that all development has actually ended and supposedly the site would be abandoned by 2008.
2009 has arrived and Yahoo 360 is still here (much to the relief of Iranian users), but the site continues to be featured as ‘beta’ with no recent formal announcements from Yahoo regarding its future. For the sake of 360 enthusiasts, I hope Yahoo does not do away with the tool and instead focuses on developing its features and addressing some of the bugs.
Here is an example of some of the conversations I had in Iran regarding Yahoo360:
15 responses so far ↓
Mohammad // February 2, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I have never even heard of Y360, but the fact that it is not being blocked in Iran makes me want to check it out. How come Yahoo hasn’t advertised this before now? Sometimes I find it hard to keep in touch with my friends back home (Iran) and this seems like the perfect way to do it. I’ll check it out, thanks.
Brad // February 2, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Great info! Would a Yahoo consolidation help or hurt this tool. Historically, opression has always been met with rebellion and government and religion can only hold people down for so long. I was not aware that Iran was the 3rd largest blogging country, but I am sure they will continue to increase.
joanna // February 2, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Thanks for the information, I will check out Yahoo 360.
Diana // February 2, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I didn’t know about yahoo 360 either. It is good that the social networking sites are trying to find ways to let people communicate with their friends and family around the globe. Their methods are improving and hopefully as you say they can be kept for a long time. Now is Yahoo’s time to seek this market and help them to have a nice site that meets their needs.
Cheers Layla.
p.s the link does not work
BB // February 3, 2009 at 4:41 am
My Iranian friends back home are way more active on Facebook than any other frineds that I have in US or elsewhere. I always wondered how they manage to access these social networking websites. Thank you Layla for your info. I hope one day no human being in this world would need proxies to keep in touch with his/her loved ones.
Sara // February 4, 2009 at 2:37 am
I never knew certain countries forbid the web. That is very interesting to know this information. I am so going to check out yahoo 360! It all sounds very very cool. Thanks for all the info its good to know that people can keep in contact with each other!!!!!
Andrea // February 4, 2009 at 3:21 am
Yahoo 360 is an unknown aspect of Yahoo, to me. Glad to know that it’s a social networking site where people can share their pictures, business ideas, or communicate with friends/family. Thanks for the insight.
Sanam // February 4, 2009 at 3:29 am
Funnily I’ve been getting invitations to join Yahoo 360, but I always thought why should I join it since we are already friends on other Social Networking sites and I’m myself active on Orkut (less nowadays) and Facebook? So I’ve been keep on ignoring those invitations! The info you’ve provided us about Yahoo 360 and its high usability in Iran is an interesting fact and now I’m more curious to at least take a look at it! Thanks.
Sanam // February 4, 2009 at 3:32 am
Also I hope that this subject is being publicized the Iranian government is not going to find a way to put a closure or block on Yahoo 360 too, like what they did with Orkut and Facebook. I think publicizing that fact should be a bit limited
Paria // February 4, 2009 at 7:05 am
Wow these informations are so true….all my friends in Iran have Yahoo360, I didn’t know what it was untill I went to Iran this summer. Anyways in order to be in touch with my friends I signed up for Yahoo360 as well. Thank you Layla joon, this was a great information.
Layla Sabourian // February 6, 2009 at 6:21 am
Hi Everyone: thanks for your comments. Sanam joon, don’t worry, I don’t think my blog is going to encourage the Iranian governement to shut down Yahoo 360
mddand // February 8, 2009 at 6:23 am
Hi Layla,
Great post! I hadn’t heard of Y360 either but I’ll check it out.
Cheers,
Mia
Azita // February 8, 2009 at 9:53 am
Hi Layla
what would I do without my well informed social media expert in the bay area??
thanks fort the post!
Narges // February 10, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Very useful information. I had heard about this Yahoo 360 a while ago but had no idea it still existed. Your blog entry made me curious to go back and check it out for myself . Good info!Thanks for the post and keep the interesting stuff come
AHOURA // August 26, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Alllllllliiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee