★ My Thoughts on Yoono 6.0

It was early May, 2008 and I came to San Francisco to look at apartments when someone at Yoono emailed me about a marketing opportunity with the company. I installed the product in FireFox and, despite the shortfalls of the beta, I was hooked. Yoono was brand new and lacked many of the “power user” features that I was accustomed to, but the convenience of an always visible sidebar really enriched my experience on social networks—to the point where I couldn’t close the sidebar even if it meant I had less screen space for my favorite websites.

I officially joined Yoono in September as a “Yoono Evangelist” and the product has improved steadily, but not fast enough for my liking. The past 5 months have zipped past because the entire team has been hunkered down working on version 6.0. The new version is a revolutionary update with changes that reduce the learning curve for new users, new features that make the product better, and performance and stability improvements.  Today I wanted to review Yoono 6.0 with a non-biased approach. I will be highlighting my favorite features, providing personal gripes and feedback on areas that need improvement. Working for a company doesn’t mean you can’t be honest about its product, and I wouldn’t post a blog entry that’s not truthful. Let’s get started.

Sidebar: Yoono lives on the left hand side of both Firefox and Internet Explorer. I’d love to see a Safari and Chrome version, and so would Yoono, however there are some specific technical challenges for those two browsers. Both are possibilities down the road however.  The sidebar can be closed with a single click or simply made “thin,” while still updating you as new status updates or Instant Messages come in. I love the various ways to resize the sidebar, but this feature has been around for a while. The real power comes when you’re using the widgets. Let’s explore those for a bit as I share just how powerful Yoono is.

Friends: Yoono’s Friend Widget is set to default when you install it. There is an option to create an account or run the app as a guest. Both work similarly and make an easier entry point for users that don’t like signing up for services. Creating an account is beneficial because your settings are saved so if you want to use Yoono on multiple computers you can just sign in on the second computer rather than set it up again. It also allows you to sync bookmarks across multiple computers and provides many more features. (it is of course your review but generally I’m not mentioning bookmark sync as it tends to feel unrelated to the core value proposition)

Yoono supports the most popular U.S. social networks. There are far more popular networks overseas, and more networks are always being asked for, but a small company like Yoono can only add so many networks at a time. I’d love to have LinkedIn, Playlist and a few others, but some of these sites don’t allow third parties to develop add-ons. I’ve learned that many third party networking platforms “hack” their way into supporting sites like LinkedIn, which is a very bad thing. Imagine building your business off siphoning gas from cars and reselling it to others. Good luck!

The network that saw the most improved feature set is Twitter. I’m so happy for this improvement. Now I have the ability to reply, retweet (RT) and view conversations with a single click! Reply and direct message (DM) were already in the product, but things are so much easier with these small Twitter improvements.

General improvements include supporting more API features in MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook. Yoono made the connections to these networks more reliable and improved security.  (I believe Oauth is not used by Facebook. I think maybe rephrasing this to just convey the point about not signing in via Yoono but via the service itself is the key.)  For example, when you add the Facebook network, you’re taken to Facebook.com and asked to sign in. Yoono then gets an auto-generated token that allows a connection to Facebook, but for security, they never store your password. I’m so happy to see this implemented. Sites like Imeem don’t have OAuth support so you’re forced to enter your username and password into Yoono in order to connect.

Instant Messaging in Yoono is all new! Buddy Folders are fully supported, you can update your status messages across all social networks and IM networks. The notification system for receiving an IM is so easy to use! For example, when I receive an IM from Laura, it shows the number of IMs I’ve received that I haven’t looked at. Once I click the AIM icon, the number goes away. Additionally, the Friends icon flashes if the sidebar is in “thin mode.” Every network can be filtered by name so I can see all of Laura’s tweets, find her in my AIM buddy list or find her Facebook updates. Filtering is fast and easy to use.

General usability rocks in Yoono 6.0. The options for all networks are under one menu and options are only displayed for the networks that you have configured. If I’m currently in AIM and click “options,” it shows the AIM options already highlighted. Additionally, there is usually more than one way to do something. I can remove networks via “manage social networks” or via Options. I can filter just Twitter or filter all of my networks for a specific person. It’s so easy to use that you’ll be surprised when the entire thing is configured in under 15 minutes.

Okay, so what don’t I like about the new Friends Widget? There is always something that can be improved but I’ve learned that everything I want is reliant on the networks giving Yoono access to those features. I would love to be able to engage in group chats on AIM or have expanded conversation threads in FriendFeed (think you can do this in FF if it is what I think it is), but I don’t have that right now. Additional gripes? Well, there are a few, but I’ve learned that every one of my gripes will be fixed within the next couple of weeks. I’d list my issues, but then I would be revealing some new features that are soon to release!  Actually I think you should add a few more items that you want here – for example multiple account support and there are probably others.  Doesn’t need to be an exhaustive list, but would like to see more.

Discovery: The most undervalued feature is the Discovery Widget. I’ve never had access to so much useful information in real time without lifting a finger. Imagine going to an Amazon page for an Asus EeePC, and without doing a thing, seeing photos, videos, wiki pages, news articles, reviews and shopping results from all over the web. IT SOUNDS TOTALLY AWESOME!

This is exactly what Yoono does. As a test, I searched for Robert Scoble, a well known blogger, and received over ten Wikipedia pages referencing him, his book, videos, photos and websites. It’s amazing, but with Yoono 6.0, something new was added.

Many users, including myself, forget to play with discoveries so a feature was added that lets you discover things in real time by simply highlighting a few words on any web page you visit. When I’m on NYTimes.com and I see a name I don’t recognize, simply double clicking the word will expose a magnifying glass. Clicking the magnifying glass opens up a mini  Discovery Links window. The same features available in the discovery widget are now in a floating window on my screen. Now I can have the Friends Widget open and still discover cool content!

YooLinks can be disabled, but why would you want to? It’s so cool! There’s even a feature that will highlight popular words on a page (if you want) and it makes accessing YooLinks even easier. Discovery is the most underrated feature that will change the way you browse the web. It’s a part of Yoono and comes in every install.

Share: The newest feature that will change the way you share the web is built into every aspect of Yoono. Personally, I dismissed it when I saw the big share button because share has been applied so poorly nearly every time. I’m sure you’ve all seen the “share this” buttons all over the web and you’re presented with fifty different places to share content that no one ever clicks it! Yoono made this easy and it’s so cool to see our community using it more and more every day.

You can share discovered links, photos, videos or shopping items. You can share things within social networks and pretty much everywhere else. Do me a favor. Go to a blog that has YouTube videos, photos and text. Find the share button (it’s on the Yoono sidebar) and click it. This page is perfect for that (link).

Suddenly, you can hover over photos, text and even videos. Click them and a share checkbox is highlighted. You can even select a blurb of text. When you click “share” again, a box comes up asking which social networks you want to share this content with. I’ll choose Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed and then type a caption in like, “This is a cool page.” Click through, and suddenly a link like this will be shared out. (http://yoono.com/ygGGfG). It’s a permanent and living link that takes your friends to a Yoono.com page that hosts the content you selected. Your friends can see images, the text you selected or a video. These links can be retweeted, emailed or IMed to others and the content never changes.

It’s a way to share not just your favorite pages (which is a feature of share), but content within pages with friends—and the entire process takes under 10 seconds. Share has changed the way I share my content with the web and it makes sharing EASY for everyone. In addition, Yoono links are short (under 20 characters). I’m a very social guy, but sharing is my favorite new feature in Yoono 6.0 and I encourage everyone to try it.

When I set out to review my favorite browser add-on, I had no idea the post would be four pages long, but I can say that I only covered 35% of what I set out to talk about. That’s a lot of content for an add-on that is only a 3 megabyte download (think it is actually only 2.1 MB now!). I encourage everyone to visit Yoono.com, download the add-on for FireFox or Internet Explorer and let me know what you think. It will change the way you experience the social web and will save you time every day in the amount of “stuff” that must be digested.

Thanks for reading.