Yahoo! launches stealth beta of myM: A Meebo competitor?

Yahoo! appears to be working on a new social networking/chat service. MyM is in private beta at the moment, so we can't tell you much about it, but Silicon Valley gossip rag Valleywag reports that the service could be some sort of web-based instant messenger that will tie in with other social sites including Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, LiveJournal, and competing IM services including AIM, MSN Messenger, and Meebo.

We'd say the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense, except we don't really know enough about the service to condemn it yet. When you sign up for email notification of future myM news, you're asked what social networks and chat clients you use. While Valleywag surmises that this means myM will tie in with those services, it's also possible that Yahoo! just wants to know how you use the internet.

Still, as long as we're in the realm of speculation here, we're going to make a wild guess that myM will be a Yahoo! branded web-based instant messaging widget that you'll be able to add to various social networking sites or your personal blog. But until someone sends us an invite, we'll never really know. Hint hint.

Tags: chat, instant-messaging, meebo, mym