Smub, which stands for "smart multi-use bookmarking," requires only that users type "smub.it/" to the left of the URL they wish to bookmark or share. Then, whether it's viewed on a mobile device or a computer, the browser goes to Smub's ten-button interface where users are presented with a modest but functional selection of link-sharing options. The service effectively eliminates the need for copy/paste functions and takes a few steps out of iPhone users' sharing process.

Todd Montgomery, Smub's Marketing and Business Development VP, spoke with us Sunday afternoon, saying, "I know particularly people who tweet do it frequently. Unless you're registered on Smub, it still requires you to log in to third-party services each time you share a link. This is something we're working on for the future."

Other long-term plans include allowing users to define and add other sharing/bookmarking sites outside of the initial nine.

Montgomery and the rest of the Smub team don't see the service as a stop-gap solution until smart phones get smarter, and they plan to add value across web and mobile interfaces. In addition to allowing users to export their content, he said, "We're also coming up with a list function. Instead of having to bookmark each link, you can create a list. Now, your friends will only have to go to one destination to see all the associated links," a function the Smub team thinks will be especially useful for academics and researchers.

Although their initial core focus is on the iPhone, Smub will be optimizing the user interface for Blackberries and other smart phones, as well.

"There seems to be no end in sight when it comes to the popularity of social networking sites. Myspace.com surpassed the 50 million unique visitor-mark in May, an increase of seven percent since April. In addition, Youtube nearly doubled its traffic in May, reaching 12.6 million visitors, while Classmates.com reached 14.7 million visitors, and Facebook.com captured just over 14 million visitors."
(emphasis mine)

According to comScore YouTube had 12.6 million unique visitors in May (up from 6.6M and so putting it just outside the top 50 properties on the Web), Google Video 7M, and Yahoo! Video 4.2M. YouTube was in fact the fifth most "Gaining Property" across all the sites comScore tracks, by percentage change in unique visitors, from April to May! Here's the trend chart, comparing YouTube's success with the far more static growth of Yahoo Videos and Google Videos:

Alexa.com shows a similar trend, but suspiciously their stats have YouTube with the same reach as MySpace (which obviously isn't right):

I'd be interested to see Hitwise's chart for May 06, because last time they did one (in December 05) they had Yahoo way out in front - but at that time YouTube was just starting it's big push:

Summary

So in the space of just 6 months YouTube has not only overtaken Yahoo Video as the most popular Web video-sharing service on the planet, but it's now approx 3 times as big as Yahoo's product! That just shows (once again) how quickly the status quo can change on the Web.

Open platforms and dev

Bradley said that Yahoo these days is all about open platforms - and discovering what people do with all the data that comes from that. Caterina said that the real interesting stuff comes from the creativity and invention this unleashes in people external to Yahoo. The phrase "Opening up Yahoo" was one Bradley mentioned in his speech to the Supernova attendees.

One of the recent success stories of Yahoo has been Yahoo! Hack Day, an internal developers project at Yahoo led by Chad Dickerson. The spirit of Hack Day is now being transferred to the Yahoo Developer Network, Yahoo's external development resource. Chad has recently taken the reins of YDN to make that happen.

Yahoo.com and Mail

We discussed a little about the recent re-design of the yahoo.com homepage, a story which I covered extensively on Read/WriteWeb (at that time I interviewed Bradley's boss, Chief Product Officer Ash Patel). Bradley noted that the yahoo.com homepage re-design was a step towards the functionality of MyYahoo - i.e. it's moving from a page model to a more interactive model. I asked if video and television-like content will increase on yahoo.com and Bradley responded by pointing to Yahoo! Video, which is getting more and more uptake. Also the new Yahoo.com homepage has video (and Ajax) elements.

I can't recall how I got on to this topic, but I mentioned how Gmail was a new email paradigm and that I loved how Google had changed the concept of web email. Bradley made a good point in response: that the new Yahoo Mail (even though it sticks with the existing paradigm) now integrates RSS and there are more PIM features coming. With Yahoo, because they have such a mainstream user base, it's a case of doing a deliberate switchover of functionality - rather than changing the ballgame as Google is wont to do. The same response was given when I mentioned my current hobby horse, widgets. i.e. MyYahoo will make more use of widgets when it makes sense to transition their mainstream users over to that kind of functionality.

Yahoo Search evolving into social search

One of the more interesting topics of discussion was how Yahoo Search is evolving into a more social construct. We're seeing evidence of it now, with Y! Answers - which allows users to search for things that don't yet have an answer. Also when you are logged in, there are options for Yahoo My Web results and IM integration. I asked how many Y! Answers were in the database so far and I was told approximately 10 Million, although this isn't a confirmed figure.

Organic growth via social networks

The goal in general for Yahoo products is to achieve organic growth via social relationships. Flickr is a great example of this - it's how Flickr grew and will continue to grow, via the larger Yahoo network they're now a part of. Caterina pointed out that if Flickr did a Superbowl ad, then users that came to Flickr via the ads probably wouldn't understand the product. But if users come to Flickr via their social network, then they will have a better understanding of the product and hence there's a better chance they'll use it. I think Caterina made a similar point (from a different angle) in a recent post when she said "the sociality is definitely part of the ecosystem" for Flickr.

All in all I'm always impressed by the number of smart people Yahoo has working for them now - and how open they are to tapping the tech community for ideas and inspiration (and vice versa!). I wish Google was more like this, but I guess they have their reasons.

Photos: freshelectrons and geodog