Tag: yahoo

The New Delicious

delicious On July 31st, the new Delicious.com finally launched. I consider myself a fairly heavy user of the service, with over 4200 bookmarks and 3700 tags. It’s something I use on a daily basis, so I noticed the new version almost immediately. My first reaction was “wow” but after using it for the last few days, I’m not so excited about it anymore.

What it all comes down to is that there just isn’t anything new, besides a fresh coat of paint. At least the Delicious team didn’t try to hide that in their post about the changes:

The new Delicious is just like the old del.icio.us, only faster, easier to learn, and hopefully more delightful to use and to look at.

They dropped the dots, cleaned up the UI, and made the backend faster. I appreciate all of those changes, but I’m somewhat disappointed that there’s nothing new and exciting for me to play with. The “new” domain has actually worked for a long time now, and the old domain will continue to work, so that’s not much of a change. The new layout and UI can be best described as “long overdue”. I guess I’m happy about the performance improvements, and I have definitely noticed it, especially when searching.

Apparently the changes will allow the team to make improvements faster, but only time will tell if that is actually the case. I think Delicious could definitely use some work around the social networking aspect of the site – starting with allowing me to specify a profile picture! They could also probably do a lot with recommendations and trends, to help me find things I might be interested in.

Even though the new Delicious has launched, I feel like I’m still waiting.

Maybe Microsoft should buy Amazon instead

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal continues to be the hot topic in the blogosphere right now, with Techmeme still dominated by related discussion. The latest news is that Google has posted an official response to the proposed takeover. In general, discussion has moved from “can you believe what just happened” to “this deal with fail/succeed because…” If you read only two posts on the topic, read this one from Fake Steve Jobs and this one from Henry Blodget.

I really have no idea how this is going to play out. Based on what I’ve read, it seems pretty likely that Microsoft will successfully acquire Yahoo. Many think the deal is as good as done. Far less certain, however, is whether they can make the acquisition a success. It could go either way.

I think what’s clear is that this is a strategy change for Microsoft. A bold recognition that they need to succeed on the web. They trail Google in both search and advertising, and it makes a certain amount of sense that combining with Yahoo will create a stronger competitor.

Microsoft is a platform company. Their cash cow is Windows, the most widely used technology platform in history. They are good at platforms. If the strategy shift is to the web, shouldn’t it be slanted towards a great platform?

amazonawsSuch as Amazon’s Web Services platform. On Wednesday Amazon announced their fourth quarter earnings, and shared this tidbit about Amazon Web Services (AWS):

Adoption of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) continues to grow. As an indicator of adoption, bandwidth utilized by these services in fourth quarter 2007 was even greater than bandwidth utilized in the same period by all of Amazon.com’s global websites combined.

ReadWriteWeb has a good discussion of what this means.

Obviously Microsoft isn’t a retailer, and owning Amazon.com itself probably isn’t in the company’s best interests. It could acquire the company for AWS and spin off the rest, however. I suppose Microsoft could just try to duplicate what Amazon has already accomplished with AWS, but why bother? Grab the early market leader and take it to the next level.

I think AWS is an indication of what the platform of the future will look like. Microsoft would be wise to pay attention.

Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo!

Post Image This is no longer just a rumor, this is the real deal. I’ve never seen so many articles on the same topic so fast on Techmeme, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is big, big news! Here’s what they had to say in the press release:

The combination will create a more efficient company with synergies in four areas: scale economics driven by audience critical mass and increased value for advertisers; combined engineering talent to accelerate innovation; operational efficiencies through elimination of redundant cost; and the ability to innovate in emerging user experiences such as video and mobile. Microsoft believes these four areas will generate at least $1 billion in annual synergy for the combined entity.

Microsoft has developed a plan and process that will include the employees of both companies to focus on the integration of the combined business. Microsoft intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo! engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

The offer is a combination of cash and stock. Microsoft thinks they can have regulatory approval and a completed deal in the second half of 2008.

Look out Google!

Read: Techmeme

Yahoo and Google become OpenID providers

Post Image The OpenID single sign-on project got a major boost this week when Yahoo announced it would enable it’s 250 million users to use their Yahoo logins for authenticating at OpenID websites. And just yesterday, Google announced that Blogger accounts can now be used as OpenID logins. OpenID is definitely gaining momentum.

So what is OpenID?

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

It’s a really good idea, and works fairly well in practice. I think a major question new users will have is, which provider should I use?

See I think most users have a Yahoo account and a Google account, and many others. There are tons of sites that act as OpenID providers. Which one should you choose? How do you decide which to use as your provider?

I guess it wouldn’t matter if you could combine them somehow. I don’t know enough about OpenID to know if that’s possible. Anyone reading this have any idea?

Read: OpenID

Microsoft and Yahoo…again

Post ImageAs the saying goes: where there’s smoke there’s fire. Perhaps that axiom should have a time limit though. I mean, there can only be so much smoke before you have to wonder…is there one fire? Multiple fires? Any fire at all? Is that even smoke?!

The reason I bring this up: Microsoft buying Yahoo was in the news again. Still a rumor. How many times are we going to hear this?

"It’s just speculation at this point. But there were rumors this past weekend that Microsoft offered $80 billion for Yahoo. Yahoo was said to have rejected the bid as too low."
– Microsoft Watch, 1/3/2006

"Microsoft has been in talks with Yahoo! about potentially acquiring a major portion of the company, according to a report published Wednesday."
– CNNMoney.com, 5/3/2006

"Microsoft should buy Yahoo! to give its struggling MSN Web unit a much-needed boost, according to a report issued by Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post."
– TheStreet.com, 6/23/2006

"Microsoft can afford Yahoo! and a combined MSN/Yahoo! would certainly be a stronger competitive player against Google, something that is clearly on Ballmer’s mind right now. That seems the most likely deal to me."
– Fred Wilson, 10/15/2006

"Should Microsoft buy Yahoo? UBS analysts Heather Bellini and Benjamin Schachter raise the question in a report issued this afternoon about the troubles in Microsoft’s online business."
– Barron’s, 3/1/2007

"While Microsoft and Yahoo! have held informal deal talks over the years, sources say the latest approach signals an urgency on Microsoft’s part that has up until now been lacking."
– New York Post, 5/4/2007

"Microsoft Corp.’s plan to buy AQuantive Inc. for $6 billion increases the likelihood that the software maker will also buy Yahoo! Inc."
– Bloomberg, 5/18/2007

"In a TV interview, Microsoft’s Chairman and CEO Steve Ballmer wouldn’t answer whether the company continues to mull buying Yahoo."
– PC World, 8/20/2007

"A Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo would be disastrous for Yahoo…But what such an acquisition would do to Yahoo is irrelevant. If Microsoft comes in with a Murdoch-like offer, Yahoo won’t be able to refuse."
– Henry Blodget, 11/16/2007

There’s certainly been other times that I haven’t listed above (a quick search reveals millions of results). The point is that we’ve heard this rumor many times, and nothing has come of it. Will the next time be any different? I’m thinking no, but who knows.

Acquisitions of this size take time. Maybe the strategy is to have it mentioned multiple times for a few years so that it is less shocking (and thus easier for everyone to swallow and for the Feds to approve) when it actually happens?

Or maybe it’s just such a fascinating combination that it’s hard not to speculate.

Read: Techmeme

Yahoo! Podcasts is dead

Post ImageI’ve seen a few blog posts on this now, and I wanted to add my own thoughts. Some time in the last couple days Yahoo added a message to the top of their forever-in-beta podcast directory site that reads “Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007.” Not really a surprise as far as I’m concerned. Most people in the podcasting community would be able to tell you that Yahoo has ignored the site for months.

Here is what I said about the site when it launched almost two years ago:

Yahoo’s Podcasts directory is put together very nicely, I think. The layout and organization make intuitive sense, and the search functionality seems to work quite well also.

I’m not sure how many podcast directories we need, but I’d have to say that Yahoo’s is a welcome addition to the bunch.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stay true for very long.

Both Read/WriteWeb and TechCrunch invoke the magic word – video – when suggesting reasons for the site’s demise. I’m not so sure the rise of YouTube and the clones had any impact whatsoever on Yahoo Podcasts. As a matter of fact, the site lists both audio and video podcasts.

I think Yahoo chose to kill the site in part because it contains the word “podcast” in its name. I’ve written about this before, as have many others. It’s not the process or idea that’s bad, just the name.

I suspect the main reason Yahoo shut down the site is a renewed focus for the company, as speculated in the comments on TechCrunch. Just as well I guess.

Read: TechCrunch

Yahoo Mail gets better

Post ImageI haven’t used Yahoo! Mail in ages, but two bits of news caught my eye today regarding the service. The first, is that Yahoo! is going to start offering unlimited storage in May:

The unlimited storage will begin rolling out globally in May, and Yahoo expects to have all of its customers covered within a month, except for China and Japan. “We will continue working with these markets on their storage plans,” Kremer said.

Yahoo! is the first of the big players to launch unlimited storage. I can’t imagine Google and Microsoft will be far behind.

The feature is important for further development, as Om Malik reports:

What it shows is that the company is beginning to think of Yahoo Mail as a platform, leveraging cheap storage and a mega audience.

I think the other shoe is going to drop tomorrow when Yahoo in all likelihood is going to announce a Yahoo Mail API, which would open up the service to third party developers.

Really?! An API for a mail service? That would be pretty darn cool, I have to admit.

Read: Yahoo! Mail

Happy Birthday Yahoo!

Post ImageOn March 2nd, 1995 the site that started life as “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” incorporated as Yahoo (with an exclamation of course). I remember the early days, when all the pages had grey backgrounds and seemed to lack structure. It sure has come a long way. Tony Long at Wired explains:

Originally founded as a search engine/web directory, the company expanded rapidly through acquisitions to diversify into a full-blown internet service company, offering e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, online shopping and news, among other things.

I like Yahoo!, in case you hadn’t noticed, despite their growing pains.

And here’s a cool bit of trivia I just read on Wikipedia: if you click the exclamation point in the Yahoo logo on the homepage, you’ll hear the Yahoo yodel!

Read: Wired

Yahoo! Pipes

Post ImageI decided I would take one last look at Techmeme before heading off to bed, and as a result I just found out about a new product from Yahoo! called Pipes. It’s definitely not for everyone, but my inner geek is jumping for joy – Pipes is very, very cool:

Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.

I just created a quick “pipe” to see how it works, and I have to admit, it’s very easy to use. Essentially it will let you take any number of sources (like an RSS feed or something), add user inputs if required, combine them with modules to process the data, and finally connect them all together to produce some output. And it’s all done visually. No programming experience required (well not really).

Nik at TechCrunch nails it:

Pipes can take any feed as input, and combined with the already available list of functions proves to be very powerful – my mind is still buzzing thinking about all that can be done with Pipes.

It was inevitable that such a product would be released, and it is very good for Yahoo! that they managed to be the first of the big web companies to release such a product.

I wonder how successful Pipes will be. Could it be the product that allows everyone to be a “programmer”? Possibly. Nik is right that the terminology needs some work (they use too many “coder” terms I think) but that’s fairly minor. Pipes has incredible potential.

I’m definitely going to have to play with it some more.

Read: Yahoo! Pipes

Did Facebook miss the boat?

Post ImageThat’s the question that Robert Young asks over at GigaOM today. Facebook apparently turned down many potential suitors last year, deciding to go it alone. Was that a good decision or a bad one? Robert does a good job of explaining that if you ignore the financial side of things, it looks like it was a good decision:

So given such positives, one might conclude that Facebook did in fact make the right decision not to sell. as momentum and value creation certainly seems to be in their favor.

Overall traffic is up, loyalty and usage stats are high, things look good. The problem is that advertising on Facebook appears to be a win-lose situation – good for Facebook, bad for the advertisers. Which means Facebook is going to have trouble earning revenue.

My personal opinion is that Facebook missed the boat, but that they’ll likely get another shot. The product has incredible value – they are just doing a really shoddy job of extracting it. It’s only a matter of time before they need to be rescued, by Yahoo! or another big player. Whether the rescuer will fare better at extracting value from Facebook is another story.

I’d be quite happy if Yahoo! purchased Facebook, and added support for del.icio.us and Flickr. I don’t upload photos to Facebook because I use Flickr, and I don’t use the share feature at Facebook, because I use del.icio.us. I’d still like to be able to share this stuff with my friends though.

(Another thing: all three products – del.icio.us, Facebook, and Flickr – have a clean and efficient design. That alone should be reason enough to make them play nicely together!)

Read: GigaOM