Yahoo! Buzz Is Now Mainstream

When Yahoo! Buzz was announced this past February, I immediately signed up to be notified when the Digg-like news article submission site was opened up to all publishers. Well, the time has come: I received my notification today and immediately made my first two submissions.

Yes, now you can submit and syndicate your best work and, in Yahoo! Buzz’s case, you could become fortunate enough to find your article on the homepage of Yahoo!. If you get buzzed enough by other voters, your article title and summary (even a related photograph) could appear on the Buzz home page. Seeing that as few as five votes can push an article up, I’m sure that many Digg devotees will be making the mad dash over to Buzz. What’s up with that, Kevin Rose?

I can hardly wait.

Of course, if you don’t have a Yahoo! account, you’ll have to sign up first before you can use Buzz. You probably already have one especially if you’re a MyBlogLog fan or a casual user of some other Yahoo! program. This means that you have a Yahoo! email account, so head over there to retrieve your log in information.

Three Reasons Why You Should Buzz

Yahoo! gives three reasons why you should partner with them to distribute news:

1. Yahoo! Buzz welcomes ALL publishers, from large websites to niche bloggers.
2. We feature all types of content, from entertainment to business.
3. Yahoo! Buzz is currently focused on the U.S. audience.

The third reason benefits those of us in US, but is a real bummer for everyone else. I have no idea if this means that if you’re in Canada, the UK, or any other country besides the United States that you will not be receiving an invite. I’m supposing that Buzz will eventually expand but I cannot say so with certainty.

More Buttons To Paste All Over

Like Digg, you can paste buttons with your articles to draw attention to your readers that you would like to have your page buzzed. Simple coding will bring people to Buzz but you can make it easier on them by employing advanced button options whereby the article’s headline, summary, category, and URL are added, making it easier for people to buzz you. It’ll take a little extra work to get this done, but it may result in your article getting lots of attention — perhaps millions of visitors according to Yahoo!

Prepare to have your servers crash, ladies and gentlemen!

Yahoo Buzz Is Here, But Digg Ain’t Scared

So, what is the latest Digg-like site getting everyone’s attention? Last summer it was Sphinn, more recently it was Mixx, while this week it is Yahoo Buzz, the newly released “Diggable” site to hit the internet.

Should Digg fear Yahoo’s foray into their territory? Right now, the answer is clearly no, but that may soon change, especially when the tool exits beta. Please read on for a first look at Yahoo Buzz to learn what you can expect to see right now as well as down the road.

Yes, Yahoo Buzz is in beta which means that it barely registers in the world of diggable sites. But, with the power of Yahoo! behind it, it won’t take long before everyone hears about Buzz, signs up, and waits for the opportunity to submit their pages.

Initially, just 100 publishers are being allowed to Buzz, therefore if you haven’t received an invitation from Yahoo! yet, don’t hold your breath. Eventually, the Big Y! plans on opening up the site to all interested publishers, but we don’t know when that will happen.

Those publishers who are currently participating are given an online badge which allows readers to vote/submit sites to Buzz. Blogs, photos, stories and the like can be submitted and buzz is generated as votes are cast. A Buzz Score is assigned to every submission, a score determined by search term popularity, the number of times a story is emailed from Buzz, and the number of votes a story receives.

One of the biggest benefits however, is that Yahoo! promises to feature some of the top buzzed material on the home page of their site — clearly, if you write great material, are planning to submit to Buzz, and you have shared hosting, you may want to upgrade your plan before you participate!

Critics of Buzz say it doesn’t incorporate all of the features of Digg including third-party applications or tools to help determine how a story became popular. Still, with Yahoo’s backing I don’t think anyone looking for web traffic will be complaining and I know that when the invite is sent out, I’ll be signing up.

Interested in signing up with Yahoo Buzz? Visit this link to get included.