Since being forced into action thanks to the hostile takeover attempt by Microsoft, Yahoo! has come out swinging with new product developments and ideas. Digg clones have become the norm around the internet, and Yahoo has been known over the years to uh, steal other people’s ideas. So maybe Microsoft is more like Yahoo than we think, lol!

Yahoo! Buzz is now in public beta. Buzz is similar to Digg in that it lets users promote/demote (”Buzz”) content to the top of the metaphoric hive. However, currently only publishers involved in the beta can have content submitted to the site, which makes Buzz (much) more restricted than Digg.

Yahoo says that they have “members of their team” choose promoted stories to appear on the Yahoo homepage, but they do not choose what appears on the Buzz site. Like Digg, Buzz uses an algorithm to determine a story’s “Buzz Score” based on number of votes, number of times the story is shared, and the number of search results for the story’s subject matter.

I haven’t been able to get into the private Beta yet [ hey anyone at Yahoo reading this? ] so I can’t comment on the guts of adding in some stories.

If you want to start Buzz-ing, you’ll need a Yahoo account. Then, like Digg, click the voting button next to the story to promote a story. Oddly you can also submit stories directly to other social news sites (including Digg). You won’t yet be able to view your voting history, and Buzz lacks “community features” like seeing what your friends have Buzz-ed. Oh, and you can’t comment on stories on the Buzz site.

This to me feels like Yahoo wanted to do Digg, but didn’t want to either a) Buy Digg or b) Get sued by Digg .. I’m surprised that they didn’t just pony up and by Rose’s company, as it’s been on the block for awhile now…

So if you want a featureless Digg clone with stories coming only from a specific set of sources, then try Buzz now! But hey, it’s still in beta.

[courtesy: download squad]