OK, OK, I finally get it…

I might be slow, but I’m sure…

So if there was any anticipation about how Yahoo intends to position itself after its acquisitions of Flickr and del.icio.us, with the announced hosting partnership with Movable Type it’s clear now. What do they offer? End to end management — you can pick your own domain name, have it all set up with blog software installed, and roll. Jeremy Zawodny (via Boris) notes that in addition to the array of MT plugins that there are “plugins for all your favorite Yahoo services, from Flickr to del.icio.us.” They’re bookend applications. And the crowd goes wild. It will be interesting to see how well these apps are integrated into the interface, and if being under the same roof means these toys will play better with each other as tent-poles under the Yahoo Hosting Big Top than they do out in the world wild web.

Note that blogging integration is just one component of Yahoo’s package of small business tools. When I think “small business” and “the web,” I think of all the people I know who are making their way in the world as independent consultants, or itinerant contract workers, or people who simply want to establish a web presence to enhance their professional profile. All these people know they need to establish some sort of online identity, they each have something to offer the global conversation and some of them are very keen to do so, but almost all of them are intimidated by the amount of technical and cultural knowledge involved with maintaining a groovy web presence. Doing what I do, I take it on myself to butt uninvited into their personal and professional affairs and offer unsolicited straight-talking advice. Up till now, I had no option but to recommend a three or four step plan, some of them requiring technical chops (and which, though I talk trash, I have none).

Yahoo seems to be telling these people that they can start out with a web presence (with no visible branding from Yahoo in the domain or in the site) that is preloaded with all the bells and whistles of a Web 2.0 bleeding edge digerati guru right away.

Wonder if wikis, or podcast software might get rolled in too?

Interesting that it’s a hosting arrangement, not an acquisition. Whither Typepad? And I wonder if Yahoo tried to buy out Six Apart the way they did Flickr and del.icio.us. Dave Winer suggests that a WordPress arrangement is forthcoming. So maybe it’s possible the actual blogging platforms will serve as a delivery layer, but not part of the integrated firmament like the bookmarking and photo sharing apps…

Then again, maybe it’s all about making us nodes in Yahoo’s massive consumer data set.

Hey look — I just wrote a technobuzz posting! And my first reference to Winer! Better add my tags:

Yahoo, SixApart, hypemonger, technoprophet, visionaryfuturist, Technorati+Tags, Consumer+data+set