Yahoo itself into the social news community by releasing it’s beta version of “Yahoo! Buzz” recently, and quite frankly has the look and feel many of us are way too familiar with. It’s a late bloomer of the ever so popular Digg, and without the big name behind it (Yahoo! of course), it would be falling by way of Reddit and Netscape. There’s nothing new here, you vote on internet stories and articles, with the catch phrase “buzz up” instead of “Digg”. If you’re story is popular you make the front page which gets you traffic. Same old story. Let’s see how long it takes the spammers to catch up on this one and make it virtually unusable.

The model here is probably based on the fact that Digg is now spread so thin that if you haven’t been in the game since the start, a front page entry and considerable referral traffic is virtually impossible. Yahoo! is probably trying to capture those frustrated Diggers that submit, wait, and see their story buried almost instantaneously due to lack of exposure. Sure, people will dive bomb this new medium due to this frustration, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s the same old story.

One interesting side note, I cannot for the life of me find a house ad of any kind on the yahoo home page. The only access was through “more yahoo services”, which leads me to believe they are in a very non-confident beta mode with this product. Maybe they are looking for some “buzz” of their own before they make this a staple for Yahoo! users everywhere.