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The YDN team just added UED veteran Micah Laaker to the roster. He is now leading our user experience design efforts and brings with him some really interesting and valuable experience, not to mention a unique and comedic view on life and the Internet.
One of Micah's areas of focus is user identity. In fact, you may recognize Micah's name from the ACLU Pizza video that flew across the blogosphere in 2004. His own identity appears in many forms out there including some interesting recent listening behavior which, at the time of posting this, includes Whitesnake, Too $hort and Roxy Music. Hmmm, feeling nostalgic?
A little background...
Micah joined Yahoo! near the end of 2004. He has worked on My Yahoo! and the cross-network Personalization Platform team. His teams released upgrades to the RSS subscription mechanisms on My Yahoo!, News, and Mail; a persistent location experience; a network-wide Recent Activity component; RSS recommendations and alerts; and publisher tools for sharing and saving content.
In addition to the ACLU, Micah has worked with Island Def Jam Music Group, Disney Channel, Sprint PCS, Lockheed Martin, and Adobe Systems.
Micah's LinkedIn profile has more detail on his professional background. And his entertaining blog is at laaker.com. He posted an interview there that I gave him as a new member of the team. Here's one of his answers:
Q: What's the best invention in man's recorded history?A: The newspaper. As a medium that cuts its cost-to-entry so as to provide the masses with vital information, critical thinking, and calls-to-action every day, the newspaper wins it hands down for me. I would rate books highly, as well as free hosting/publishing platforms (like Blogger and Wordpress.com) for similar reasons. I also think very fondly of my Nintendo DS Lite; it's too early to tell on that one, though.
Welcome, Micah!
Matt McAlister
Posted by Matt McAlister at 11:13 AM | Comments (1)
We were able to bring actual rock stars (Beck!) to Yahoo! for last year's Yahoo! Hack Day, and now we're looking for rock stars like you. 
Whether you are passionate about exposing web service APIs at massive scale on top of one of the world's largest Internet platforms at the Yahoo! Developer Network or building distributed social networks at MyBlogLog, we have something for you. Here is what we are looking for:
Fit any of those descriptions? Send in your resume and let us know where you fit. If there's a match and we get in touch with you, be ready to give us your t-shirt size and we'll mail you a t-shirt like the one pictured above!
Chad Dickerson
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 10:43 PM | Comments (10)
It's been a YUI kind of week here at the big Y featuring warm JavaScript snugglies for the entire developer community. On Tuesday, Yahoo's YUI team released three incredibly useful new controls, celebrated its one year birthday party, and then topped it off with the exciting hosting announcement.
So, not only is the YUI library well-documented, BSD-licensed, fast, and feature-rich, but developers can now harness its full power with close to zero setup time. Yeah, that's right, we're hosting the YUI JavaScript source files, CSS files, and image files in our massive datacenters so that all developers have to do is include a small pile of links in their web pages and they're off. Did I mention that caching and GZIP compression are also used to make sure the YUI files are served as fast as possible? Sweeeeeeeeet.
We know you're noticing because the YUI library has been averaging a thousand downloads a day for some time now and the developer documentation had about 1.5 million page views last month. And yes, it's all free.
Jason Levitt
Posted by at 9:25 PM | Comments (3)
When we released TagMaps / World Explorer last month, we also released an embeddable version that bloggers and developers around the world have put on their blogs and websites. You thought that was cool: but not cool enough. One key thing was missing from the embedded TagMaps - the ability for third party developers to customize interactions that respond to the tags selected by users. So, today, we are releasing an update to the embeddable TagMaps badge. Using the updated module, you can implement a JavaScript callback function on the page where you have embedded TagMaps. On that page, then, you can create any service you can think of that takes advantage of knowing what tag the user is interested in, and where in the world it is located.
To demonstrate how this works, I’ve created a quick mashup of neighborhoods in San Francisco derived from Craigslist. It looks like this:
When the user hovers over a tag, the TagMaps badge calls the JavaScript function on the page which then displays information about that tag from Flickr, Yahoo! Video, Wikipedia, Craiglist and Yahoo! Answers. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s pretty easy for anyone to create.
First, I used the badger page to generate my HTML snippet. By default, the badger will use the World Explorer GeoRSS feed we created of tags derived from over 7M geotagged photos on Flickr. But we also allow you to create your own custom GeoRSS tag feed to display on the map. That is what I did here - I created a GeoRSS feed containing the name of each neighborhood as the tag to display on the map, along with the lat/long coordinates of where to place the tag. On the badger page, I specified my own custom GeoRSS feed rather than using the default World Explorer GeoRSS feed. Finally on the badger page, I also specified that I will be implementing a callback function.
The generated HTML snippet creates a stub JavaScript function for me to include on my page:
function onTagSelected(tag, tagid, tagLat, tagLon,
mapMinLat, mapMinLon, mapMaxLat, mapMaxLon, mapZoom)
This function will be called when the user selects a tag on my TagMaps badge. I know the tag that the user selected, the lat/long of the tag, as well as the bounding box (upper left, lower right) coordinates of the current map view. Read the documentation here.
Next, I implemented my 'onTagSelected" function to fetch and display interesting and useful information for the tag selected. First I grab the most interesting photos from Flickr with that tag, and videos from Yahoo! Video, questions and answers from Y! Answers using the Yahoo! APIs via JSON. I also grab the Wikipedia entry for the selected neighborhood tag and apartment listings from Craigslist, with a little help from our new friend, Yahoo! Pipes. You can see how I built my Wikipedia pipe here. If you haven’t experimented with Pipes, I can’t recommend it highly enough -- it’s an incredibly powerful tool that will let you "rewire the web" with very little effort.
Finally, I put it up on my website. You can play with it live at: http://shaneahern.com/sfexplorer.html.
So hopefully this quick example of the new powerful what-you-asked-for embeddable TagMaps has sparked your imagination. The rest is really up to you. We’re looking forward to what you come up with.
Shane Ahern
Research Engineer
Yahoo! Research Berkeley
Posted by dantheurer at 3:58 PM | Comments (2)
When Tim O'Reilly calls something a milestone in the history of the Internet, I've found that it's often best to just go ahead and snitch the rest of his first paragraph:
'[Pipes is] a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output. Yahoo! describes it as "an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator" that allows you to "create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant." While it's still a bit rough around the edges, it has enormous promise in turning the web into a programmable environment for everyone.'
After a very interesting start--as it turns out a whole lot of folks wanted to try it out over that first weekend--Pipes is up and running strong. Here are a few pipes, mash-ups, and tutorials to get you started:
It is especially thrilling for us to note that some of the very best material on how to use and enjoy Pipes comes from the audience the team really wanted to address: the developer community itself. Bravo, folks; please keep up the good work!
Kent Brewster, Yahoo! Developer Network
Posted by Kent Brewster at 2:31 PM | Comments (2)
My new book "Yahoo! Maps Mashups" is in stores and started shipping this week. The 350 page book spends 5 distinct chapters on each maps API including Ajax, JavaScript-Flash and ActionScript-Flash. Already recognized as the most complete documentation available on the maps APIs, the first and only book on Yahoo! Maps features over 50 code samples, all of which are download-able at the book’s companion site: www.mashupexperts.com.
The book was written to be the most comprehensive manual to the popular maps APIs possible. From the industrial-grade Ajax API to the highly creative Flash APIs, most map classes and methods are explored and sampled. For the beginner, special focus is put on zooming, panning and adding markers, overlays and tools. The advanced Yahoo! Maps mashup developer will enjoy working with custom overlays, tools and markers, live traffic and Yahoo! Local data.
As a testament to the incredible API offering from YDN (Yahoo! Developer Network), the book details one mashup for each API type using (what else but?) another Yahoo! API. For the Ajax API, you will mashup maps with Flickr using JSON. The JS-Flash API, working again with JSON, leverages trip planner data from Yahoo! Travel. The diverse Hot Jobs API is mashed up with the AS-Flash API component.
You may be missing the Flex API from the list – well, you’re not exactly missing it. Instead, you will learn how to bring the AS-Flash API into the next generation of RIA’s by coding an ActionScript 3 Local Connection class and working with Flex 2. This solution only begins to demonstrate the accelerated speed Adobe’s latest Flash technology brings to maps. In the 5 chapters dedicated to working with Flex 2, you will learn how to compile your own high quality Flash video and display it on your own Yahoo! Maps mashup.
Having spoken several times on Yahoo! maps at conferences last year, I knew the Yahoo! development community was hungry for a solid book on Yahoo! Maps. I was delighted to take advantage of the opportunity Wrox (my publisher) gave me to do the maps API, and other Yahoo! APIs justice. You’ll be happy to know, Wrox didn’t stop with Yahoo! Maps. Also available now are the following books: "Flickr Mashups" by David Wilkinson and "Del.icio.us Mashups" by Brett O’Connor. Additionally, "Amazon.com Mashups" by Franics Shanahan features mashups with Yahoo! Maps. All books carry on the fine tradition Wrox has of delivering quality technical books to real programmers. As I learned last year at many conferences, our developer community deserves and expects nothing less.
Enjoy the book and once you master each Yahoo! Maps API, I encourage you to explore the other exciting Yahoo! APIs featured right here on the Yahoo! Developer Network. You will find all the code for the book at the companion site “www.mashupexperts.com”. There, you can learn more about each Wrox Mashup book as well as post the mashups you go on to develop.
Thanks,
- Charles (Chuck) Freedman
Author of "Yahoo! Maps Mashups" and Sr. Flash Platform Engineer at Yahoo!
Posted by jzawodn at 4:07 PM | Comments (3)
You'll notice a nice new feature on the YDN web site here today: code search.
We are partnering with a really cool startup called Krugle to offer this. The press release says it all:
"The Yahoo! Developer Network can now take advantage of Krugle's code search engine and interface to allow developers working with Yahoo! APIs and data to find, save, and share code written in six languages: ActionScript, JavaScript, .NET, PHP, Python, and Ruby."
Yes, this is the company that Robert Scoble was recently glowing about:
"I keep hearing about Krugle from developers. They tell me it rocks for looking up stuff. Need shopping cart code? Search for it on Krugle."
We agree. Wired also ran a piece on Krugle last year:
"Krugle indexes programming code and documentation from open-source repositories like SourceForge and includes corporate sites for programmers like the Sun Developer Network. The index will cover around 100 million pages of what company founder Ken Krugler terms the "technical web" -- high-quality technical pages for professional programmers."
We hope you like it, though we're sure there are things we could improve. For example, as of launch time, most of the Yahoo! documentation and code is still missing from the index. What else needs improvement? Please submit suggestions, comment here on the blog below, or check out the Krugle blog.
Matt McAlister
Posted by Matt McAlister at 8:05 AM | Comments (4)
As seen over on the YUI blog:
This month the YUI Library turns one year old. When we started last year I wrote that I was “thrilled to have you with us.” That’s never been truer than it is today. We owe an outstanding first year to you. Libraries aren’t achievements themselves — it’s what people do with them that’s exceptional. We love everything you’re doing, so we’re throwing a party to thank you, our amazing community.
Join us Thursday, February 22nd, from 5:30 to 8:30 PM, at Yahoo! HQ in Sunnyvale, California. Visit Upcoming.org for details and to RSVP. 300 people max, so RSVP early!
In short: food, beer, and music to celebrate a year of YUI. RSVP now.
Posted by jzawodn at 11:12 AM | Comments (1)
GigaOM picked up the story of a project out of Yahoo! India called Our City. Boiling down the product to its essence, Om says, "Pretty easy to get a quick snapshot of what’s happening in a city." It's certainly a great product but it has an equally great story behind it.
Last April, I went to Bangalore to help run the first Yahoo! Hack Day there and it was an awesome experience. 
I was one of the judges for the event (see photo), and I remember one hack that easily stood out. The hack was a local mega-mashup focused on Bangalore that included Flickr photos, del.icio.us links, Upcoming events, and content from many other sources. The team called the hack "Our City," and it went on to win the Best Overall Hack award at that inaugural Bangalore Hack Day.
Sound familiar?
Yes, Our City was born on Hack Day from the inspiration of a small team of hackers chasing an idea to fruition. Our City is now a Hack Day success story. After some polishing and refinement, Our City is now out in public beta. Check it out.
Hack Day at Yahoo! is all about turning inspiration into reality, and when I look at Yahoo! Our City, I see a true triumph of hackers. Great job, Sai, Thanix, and the Our City team!
Be sure to check out some of the APIs that the Our City team used to build their product -- you can use them, too:
Chad DickersonPosted by Chad Dickerson at 10:06 AM | Comments (2)
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