Two weeks ago, I was all excited about Google integrating social media with e-mail. Today, Yahoo! makes a giant stride toward integrating content with social networking and I’m, at best, mildly curious.

Web portals such as Yahoo! exist to solve an information-filtering problem. In the early days of the Web, visiting a portal site such as Yahoo! saved you a lot of time, because it meant you didn’t have to visit a bunch of different sites to get all the news and other content you need. But times have changed — now we’ve got all kinds of tools to help keep us in the loop: text and e-mail alerts, RSS feeds, super-cool e-mail newsletters and a plethora of social networks. Each of these platforms does a better job of filtering information than a single, all-purpose portal, because they’re easier to tailor to the things you actually care about. Why take a step back?

I’ll admit the move is great for current Yahoo! users — and adding tweets to their search results is a fine idea. Perhaps most importantly, it shows that Yahoo! still has its head in the game and is looking for ways to transform itself. But I’m not sure if this is the move that will convince users like me to give the old portal system another try.

Disagree? See a key detail in the arrangement that I’ve missed? Think Yahoo is the best thing ever? Let me know in the comments!

Image credit, alexsl, via iStock

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