

Introducing YOS 1.0 - live today - timtrueman
http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/10/yos_10_launch.html

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IsaacSchlueter
It's incredibly gratifying to finally have something to point people at when
they ask what I do at Yahoo.

Please keep the comments coming here and on the blog post. Feel free to
message me if things don't work. If I can't answer your question, I'll be able
to at least bug the person who can. Direct feedback is always the best.

~~~
jfarmer
Cool. Do you know Ryo?

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Yeah, I do. Very smart guy. We lost him to Google, tho :’(

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Jasber
This is a big win for Yahoo. I think they're realizing developers are their
best chance to stay in the game, so they're opening up anything and everything
in an attempt to hold on.

Definitely a smart move.

I'm mostly interested in YQL (Yahoo! Query Language):
<http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/docs/>.

I find it surprising they didn't go with an existing technology for querying
(ala SPARQL: <http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/>).

That being said there's lots of stuff developers can build leveraging this
information. I've had a lot of fun experimenting with BOSS
(<http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/>).

I think this is on the same page and is definitely a step in the right
direction for Yahoo.

~~~
bigthboy
<sarcasm>Developers their best chance to stay in the game? Ballmer knew that a
long time ago... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE> </sarcasm>

~~~
Jasber
Right, I've heard Ballmer scream "Developers, Developers, Developers" just
like everyone else--but what are they doing about it (when it comes to
search)?

The best I can find is Live Search API: <http://search.live.com/developer/>

Which is nothing compared to what Yahoo! is offering.

 _Edit: Sarcasm doesn't work on the Internet ;)_

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lux
I heard there might be something akin to Facebook Connect for site logins, but
it doesn't sound like that's in here. FB connect, OpenID and the like seem
like an area with big potential. I think Facebook stands a good chance at
taking that market outright since they have such a huge active user base
already.

Yahoo could also become a lot more relevant to the average web user if these
things gain some uptake. Good luck to them, I don't use many of their services
but have to recognize the significant contributions to open source and the web
they've been making recently.

~~~
timtrueman
Yahoo! has been an OpenId provider since Jan 30 of this year
([http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/01/yahoo-
openi...](http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/01/yahoo-openid-
beta.html)). Also YOS supports OpenSocial, so it's very much similar to
Facebook Connect (Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see any features FB
Connect has that YOS doesn't). I'm not sure about the market share point you
bring up because although FB has lots of users, Yahoo! has roughly 400M more
("500 million monthly users. 180 billion monthly page views. 233 countries.").
Not to mention YOS is live and FB Connect isn't. Either way I'm excited for
both!

~~~
lux
I had said active users specifically. Facebook has exceptionally active users.
Yahoo has a lot for sure, and I wouldn't want to underestimate them (they may
be hurting in the stock market, but they do have a real and large online
presence still), but also a lot of inactive users, accounts registered because
someone had to in order to use one of their services like Yahoo Groups.
Myspace I would bet has a huge number of inactive users too. Plus, the
perception is that Facebook is on the rise and Yahoo is on the decline. That
makes YOS seem like a desperate move and FB Connect seem like innovation, when
they're very similar in reality and both innovative.

As for OpenSocial, yeah it is pretty similar so we'll see. OpenID on the other
hand has yet to be implemented in a way that makes sense to non-techies and
that makes non-techies actually care about it. FB Connect, with the right
partnerships (which seems like that's their strategy) could really take off,
and is dead simple for the end user, unlike OpenID. I have my doubts that
OpenID will ever be made easy enough and gain widespread use.

~~~
timtrueman
"500 million monthly users" means users who are active at least once a month,
which I think qualifies as active. That's not counting every registered
account at all (I'm not sure there's any official numbers on that but it's a
lot higher than 500M). Sure it's arguable Facebook users are more engaged, but
point taken. Facebook is cooler and on the rise in peoples minds. I'm not sure
I see how Facebook Connect is any more easy to authenticate with than OpenID
from a user perspective.

~~~
lux
Not to beat it to death :) but I look with a bit of skepticism at their 500m
active users. I'm not saying it's not a true figure, but I know I personally
fall into that number since I log in about once a month to do something on a
Yahoo Group for example, and while I'm definitely a monthly user I'm certainly
not an actively engaged user, and Yahoo will have a hard time getting someone
like me on board with their social efforts. I bet a substantial portion of
their users are in the same boat. Maybe they use their mail or groups or sites
or something else, but I think it will be tough turning that into a coherent
social network just like I think Google would have a tough time doing the same
with their user base, and their accounts have been synchronized across
services from the get-go.

All my friends and family are already on Facebook. They all use it actively,
and daily, for posting photos, events, keeping in touch, pokes and eaves
dropping, etc. It's the new email, it's the new IM, it replaces our need for
flickr and a bunch of separate services, and so on. It provides a personal
experience you don't get with Myspace et al, and you'd be hard-pressed to pull
them away from that.

If a site I go to, or they go to, has the little FB icon they can click it,
they may already be logged in and simply click "allow this site to access my
profile" or whatever. If not, they enter their FB login info which they'll
remember because it's a) their email and b) a password they enter all the
time, and they're off. Since the Connect portion is on Facebook already,
Firefox may already pre-fill their login info too. Compare that to OpenID
where you have to remember something that looks like a URL on top of your
username and password for your OpenID provider. The fact is, average users
aren't grokking OpenID (didn't Yahoo themselves just publish something to this
effect?), and I personally think it's a failure in the design of OpenID
itself, which makes it particularly hard to fix.

The biggest play for OpenID right now I think is Windows Live becoming a
provider. That may change things, but Yahoo being on board I don't think will
do it. But we'll have to wait and see.

~~~
timtrueman
Fair enough. (Are you a little smitten with Facebook? :P)

~~~
lux
Not really :) I tease my girlfriend because she's on it sometimes for an hour
or more at a time, but it's 'cause she's using the chat mostly. I'm generally
more antisocial online; I disable chat and basically use facebook to keep up
with out of town family and to play chess/scrabble.

I do think there's something important to people about what they've built
though, which is something hopefully Yahoo and the others will be able to
figure out too, but has so far eluded the other social networks. I like Yahoo,
and I'm actually rooting for them. I'd really like to see Yahoo get back on
its feet, and I hope it can do so independently of Microsoft. That would be
great to see :)

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alex_c
Slightly off-topic, but not completely:

I would LOVE to see some quantitative measurements of the effect that opening
up a platform to developers has on the respective company.

End of the day, is (extra_revenue_from_custom_applications_and_exposure -
resources_to_maintain_platform -
customers_lost_to_crappy_apps_or_platform_issues) > 0?

Obviously the formula is more complicated and varies from company to company,
but I would love to see a good discussion from an insider who's gone through
it.

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timtrueman
Also posted on the main Yahoo! blog: <http://ycorpblog.com/2008/10/28/were-
open-have-at-it/>

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sanj
Any chance this means there's a calendar API?

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paul9290
What data sets does this open for developers and start-uppers to use? Is there
a list?

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reid
In particular, you can use the new Yahoo! Social Platform APIs to access
social data for Yahoo! users. For example, your application could easily post
activity from your existing app to Yahoo! using the Updates API.

Lots more offered by YOS 1.0 is listed here:
<http://developer.yahoo.com/yos/intro/yos-options.html>

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redorb
did yahoo just "out whataburger"* google app engine, by letting us use any
language we want?

*<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbCiOkcAo0I>

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Actually, App Engine is a different kind of thing.

GAE is a platform where your app is hosted on their servers.

YAP is a (mostly) open social compliant app delivery platform that lets you
create apps and deploy them on our web pages.

GAE is a competitor to Yahoo Small Business, I suppose, since it's a paid
hosting service. We're working very closely with Google, MySpace, and a bunch
of other partners on making Open Social a success. (NB: you can also create
Open Social apps for those other platforms, as well.)

In addition to Open Social, there are things like YQL and other extensions
that Yahoo has developed in-house. Some of those may make it into the OS spec,
where it makes sense to do so.

