Yahoo! Jumps Into The World Of Third Party Applications

A "start page" allows Yahoo users to access a number of the company's applications, like Yahoo Mail and Flickr, as well as the requisite news-and-weather mobile features. /// Yahoo has additionally launched a developer initiative to put third-party widgets into its mobile offerings. Initial launch partners include eBay, MySpace, and MTV News; these applications can be selected and installed directly from Yahoo Go's mobile "Widget Gallery." Image Credit: Yahoo!

Yahoo! Jumps Into The World Of Third Party Applications

In a move to show its relevance to the mobile applications world, Yahoo! unveils a demonstration of its Go 3.0 platform at a keynote speech from the CES in Las Vegas yesterday.
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang used his speech at CES to announce several mobile efforts including a redesigned mobile home page and a beta of Yahoo Go 3.0, which will be open to widgets created by third-party software developers.

Confusion as to whither this demonstration was an actual launch of Go 3.0 or not seems a little moot in that Yahoo! needs to make a bold move on which to stave off rival Google’s advanced recognition of the future of smartphones and their access to the internet.

Widgets to get a third-party platform on Go 3.0 - Image Credit: Yahoo!

This excerpted from Telecompaper -

Yahoo! adds third-party mobile apps with Go 3.0 launch
Published: Monday 7 January 2008 12:59 PM CET

Yahoo! has unveiled a range of new mobile internet services at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In an effort to compete with rival Google's growing presence in the mobile world, Yahoo! has launched a new version of its Go mobile platform, a re-designed mobile home page and a mobile application developers platform. The company said it wants to create and lead its own open mobile ecosystem, serving consumers, developers, publishers and advertisers.

The Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform aims to speed up the launch of mobile applications, helping developers build mobile widgets that can launch simultaneously on hundreds of different mobile phones.

The move to embrace third-party developers is part of the new Yahoo! Go 3.0 platform, which in addition to Yahoo! services will now also include third-party applications.
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The new mobile home page is initially available on the Apple iPhone, several Nokia S60 devices and select Windows Mobile devices. The latest Go software will also incorporate display advertising for the first time, alongside existing search ads.
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Start page as seen from the show floor at CES, Las Vegas - Image Credit: Yahoo!

And this excerpted from CNET -

Yahoo hopes developers don't pass 'Go'
Posted by Ina Fried - Updated at 12:10 p.m. to include potential Yahoo Mail features.

LAS VEGAS--Yahoo is hoping to prove it can be as mobile and open as its rivals.
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"I think it is time to get Yahoo yodeling again," he said [Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang].

The goal, he said, is the same as in the early days--to make Yahoo the starting point on the Internet. But he said the world is far more open, social and mobile.

"We're already the home page for hundreds of millions of people."

Yang and Marco Boerries, executive vice president for Yahoo's Connected Life unit, showed off the new Yahoo Go complete with a lot of eye candy, including an animated user interface and mobile Flickr and maps applications.

Yahoo is hoping its reach will woo developers to write widgets using its XML development environment, dubbed Blueprint.

In its early beta form Yahoo Go 3 will run on 30 devices, but the company will move to reach the more than 300 devices that can run Yahoo Go 2.0.

Beyond that, widgets developed for Yahoo's platform can also run on phones that can't run the full Yahoo Go. Any phone with a browser that can display plain HTML or XHTML can run the widgets.
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Yahoo is working with some phone makers, including Motorola, to also allow cell phones to run widgets natively from the phone.

Yang also demonstrated a future desktop version of Yahoo Mail that would sort through an inbox, prioritizing status updates and messages from people who are part of a user's social network. The sort function highlighted messages from Yang's most important contacts.
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He also showed an inbox that could get voicemail and text messages, as well as tabs for third parties, potentially folks like MySpace and Evite.

Yang stressed that the features he showed off were not part of a current or pending release.

"This is not a launch." he said. "This is more of a concept demonstration."
Reference Here>>

To reiterate - confusion as to whither this demonstration was an actual launch of Go 3.0 or not seems a little moot in that Yahoo! needs to make a bold move on which to stave off rival Google’s advanced recognition of the future of smartphones and their access to the internet.

The Go 3.0 agenda effort isn't actually a mobile operating system, it's a piece of software that piggy-backs on a handset's existing firmware. This could prove difficult for Yahoo.

This excerpted from Webware –

Green light for Yahoo Go 3.0
By Caroline McCarthy – January 7, 2008, 8:14 AM PST

But, as a New York Times article notes …

"Other companies, including cellphone makers like Nokia and Apple, and mobile software providers, like Google and Microsoft, are trying to lure third-party publishers and programmers to create services for their mobile platforms," the story pointed out.

A company eager to put its brand into the mobile market could consequently find it counterproductive to create widgets for a downloadable software package like Yahoo Mobile. The application comes pre-loaded on a number of partner handsets, but the Times article explains that U.S. cell carriers remove this prior to retail, meaning that it has to be manually downloaded. Widgets created for Yahoo Go quite likely won't have the reach of applications created for operating systems like Apple's iPhone firmware or Google's hyped Android project.
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SharedBook Offers Recipes For Tactile Communication

“Create-A-Cookbook” hardcover examples from Allrecipes.com using SharedBook’ reverse publishing platform. SharedBook Inc. is a technology company that specializes in integrating and publishing data from various sources into a structured book product that can sit as a flipbook on the Internet or be professionally printed. Image Credit: Compilation Of Images From SharedBook Inc. - ecj

SharedBook Offers Recipes For Tactile Communication

At Symblogogy, we are always on the lookout for tools that automate our lives, both personally and professionally.

New Media participants have always had a problem in trying to translate captured digital data to the tactile world. How does one create something that is truly tangible in a digital, bits and bytes universe?

Business and social enterprises, like Resorts, Funeral Homes, Alumni Associations, Weblogs, and etc., that cater to Audience-Of-One strategies for the capture and presentation of this digital information now have an ally in the ability to preserve and deliver published evidence of one's digital experience.

Two-page screenshot of a display showing an actual blog post from MAXINE for October 30, 2007 (click image for full size)- Content owners on Google's Blogger platform and their readers can now use the Blog2Print widget to turn posts into a printed book with a single click. Additional compatibility with other platforms and edit/format capabilities will become available throughout this next year. Image Credit: SharedBook inc. - ecj

Blog2Print allows any weblog activity to be turned into a book to be shared with others for any purpose. These books can be published in either hardcover or soft-cover and in any quantity desired. The purpose is the purpose one chooses.

For example, let’s say that one is a creative, New Media-savvy Real Estate Agent and the Agent augments the sales activity for each property with a weblog highlighting unique characteristics of the property that is being marketed. In addition to being able to direct prospective buyers to information specifically about the property, the Agent can have the weblog converted to a hardcover book for use as a reference at the house when showing potential buyers. Once the property enters into escrow, the Agent can hand the new owner a book that they can refer to while waiting for escrow to close.

On a purely personal level, first time parents are turning to the web to help them cope with the demands of disseminating information on the new Charge. Digital is nice, in that one can instantly grab a photo, and post a story, whereby the whole family can share in the developments of the growth experiences of the baby.

So, how does the Baby Boomer generation grandparent share the excitement of the new addition to others in their life’s circle? Carry around 8.5”X11” sheets of paper with inkjet streaks caused because it might have been raining the last time the photos were pulled out to show others?

Blog2Print widget - once Blog2Print has been added to your blog (link on widget), you'll make money each time a book of your blog is purchased! You'll receive 20% of the sales of the books sold from your blog. Caption & Image Credit: SharedBook Inc.

Solution - just press the SharedBook Blog2Print widget placed at the Charge’s weblog to create and order a hard or soft cover bound publication of what had been posted that month. No more worries on what to do and how to go about the difficult task of moving back to the tactile “analog” world from our shared digital experience.

Just in time for this holiday season … and beyond, SharedBook and Allrecipes.com join forces to cook up and deliver digital documentation of recipes back to a useful, tactile and shared medium – The Book.

SharedBook Logo – Image Credit: SharedBook Inc.

This excerpted from a press release issued by SharedBook Inc. –

SHAREDBOOK AND ALLRECIPES.COM PARTNER TO OFFER SELF-PUBLISHED COOKBOOKS FROM ONLINE CONTENT

Just in Time for the Holidays: Home Cooks Can Now Automatically Publish Collections of their Favorite Recipes in Professionally-Printed Cookbooks

NEW YORK – November 5, 2007 – SharedBook Inc., the Reverse Publishing Platform provider, and Allrecipes.com, the world’s largest online community food site, today introduced Create-A-Cookbook – a Web application allowing home cooks to self-publish professionally-printed hard- or softcover cookbooks from their favorite online and personal recipes. Beginning today, Allrecipes.com members can choose from more than 40,000 recipes to include in their personalized cookbooks, and then add their own recipes, notes, stories, and photographs.
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Create-A-Cookbook is an easy, one-click way to compile recipes in a book format that can be used and moved anywhere for easy access. With Create-A-Cookbook, users can also preserve treasured family recipes in the self-published on-demand cookbook, as well as share their favorite recipes with family and friends. Themed cookbooks can also be created for events such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and for single subjects like soups or Italian food.

“For many of us, recipes and special foods are closely connected with cherished family memories, especially during the holiday season,” said Lisa Sharples, President, Allrecipes.com. “Create-A-Cookbook is a unique way for our members to preserve their favorite recipes along with the stories and photographs that make them special.”

Now, with just a few clicks using SharedBook’s Reverse Publishing Platform, Allrecipes.com members can automatically flow recipes and photographs from their online Recipe Boxes into a structured cookbook that can be published in hard or softcover format. They can then choose to preview and purchase the cookbook immediately or to personalize it further. Members can edit the content, upload additional information and photographs for the covers and the inside pages, and order as many or as few cookbooks as they want.

Allrecipes.com members can also invite family and friends into their personal cookbook publishing space to contribute their comments and photos.
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For anyone hesitant to share closely-guarded recipes online, the personal cookbook publishing space provides a secure environment where home cooks can display their recipes only to those they invite.
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For more information, please go to www.allrecipes.com.

About SharedBook

SharedBook Inc. is a technology company that specializes in integrating and publishing data from various sources into a structured book product that can sit as a flipbook on the Internet or be professionally printed. The company’s collaborative on-demand Reverse Publishing Platform allows users to extract data and content from multiple sources, manipulate it, and then distribute their unique creation in digital or hard copy format. SharedBook partners include AYSO® Soccer, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Canyons Resort, CarePages, Inc. (a division of Revolution Health Group), Cruise West Cruise Lines, Exposures, 4-H, JumpTV Sports, Legacy.com, Little League International®, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Sportography, Inc., Steamboat Ski Resort, 30 Minute Photos Etc., USA Football, YAVarsity.com, and Yosemite. For more information, please go to www.sharedbook.com or http://blog.sharedbook.com.

About Allrecipes.com

Allrecipes.com, the world’s largest independent food site, is an online cooking community where home cooks from around the world share, rate and download recipes and meal ideas. With more than 5.5 million unique visitors a month and a membership base more than a million strong, Allrecipes.com is the world’s largest test kitchen, offering a nightly glimpse into the kitchens and habits of home cooks everywhere, and providing an indispensable resource for anyone seeking trusted recipes, everyday and holiday meal ideas, practical cooking tips and food advice. The site features more than 40,000 of America’s best-loved recipes. For additional information regarding Allrecipes.com, please visit www.allrecipes.com.
Reference Here>>


Drop by and see SharedBook and its publishing solutions for the digital age in Las Vegas at the BlogWorld & New Media EXPO - Booth #201 at the Las Vegas Convention Center - November 8-9, 2007.