Goodbye Facebook & Linkedin..

August 31st, 2007 Noor Posted in Yahoo |

This new product may never make it out of research and development, but word has it that Yahoo is working on a social

network called Kickstart. If successful, Kickstart would effectively bridge the gap between Facebook and LinkedIn.

Of course, Facebook and LinkedIn are also trying to bridge that gap, and so are a dozen other companies; hence the “never make it out of R&D” bit. Still, when CNET’s Harrison Hoffman got a sneak peek at Kickstart, he came away impressed.

“I personally think that Kickstart is a really solid concept and that it’s a possible game changer in the professional networking space,” wrote Hoffman. “Hopefully we’ll see Yahoo kickstarting some careers in the near future.”

And that’s what Kickstart is designed to do. By connecting college students to alumni within certain companies, the social network would attempt to give users a leg up in the job hunt process. I’m not sure that it wouldn’t just result in some annoyed alumni - getting asked to vouch for strangers could grow tiresome - but it’s an interesting idea.

Yahoo Kickstart may never see the light of day: it’s still a concept in testing with college students. But if the tests are a success (and

there’s certainly a lot of money in recruiting,), Yahoo will roll out the network officially. The only issue is that such a network would always be in the shadow of Facebook and LinkedIn: expect constant comparisons between the services if this is launched. The other issue: Facebook already has the social graphs of most college students: it’s much easier for them to dominate this space than a newcomer.