Archive for Yahoo
by Imran Ali
March 25, 2008 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Android, Chumby, Events, Google, London, Nokia, UK, Yahoo
London continues to be a hotbed of mobile hacking and innovation, with next month’s Over The Air, taking place on April 4th + 5th at Imperial College.
Organised by BBC Backstage’s Ian Forrester and Vodafone’s Daniel Appelquist and backed by Nokia and Google, amongst others, Over The Air will be playing host to around 450 attendees across 48 hours of hands-on hacking and code-campery!
iPhone, Openmoko, Android sound like they’ll be strong themes, but expect to see a bunch of sessions on user experience design as well as some masterclasses from handset and software companies, including Nokia, Microsoft, Adobe and Yahoo! on day one.
Head on over to the Over The Air blog for more information on the schedule and how to register…
by Russell Shaw
March 5, 2008 at 3:44 pm · Filed under Twitter, Yahoo
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch has been test-driving Yahoo’s new and yet unreleased, mobile-friendly FireEagle. He notes the platform’s hype as a “Twitter for Location.â€
The concept: open APIs that enable streaming of your location info, and with that in place, auto-tagging of applications that can swim in the stream. For example, FireEagle could enable auto-tagging of your Flickr images and then, by noting the time the photos were taken, specify where you took the shot.
I guess that since FireEagle and Flickr are both owned by Yahoo (well at least now they are), that’s what some of us used to call coverged apps.
Apparently, though, this beta is more like an alpha. Mike laments the lack of iterative functionality. At this point, you need to type in your location, which the FireEagle service notes and the places on an embedded Yahoo map.
But this rather half-baked (you know the word I wanted to use, but my Mom raised a gentleman) semi-analog workaround necessary to start the fire in FireEagle, a far cooler functionality awaits.
“Soon,†though, you’ll be able to send a text message with your location, or use ZoneTags on Nokia 60 phones to broadcast your location automatically,†Mike writes. “They’ll also release a mobile site for easier text input. There will be a FireEagle embeddable badge that will show where you are. And, finally, they’ll have the mandatory Facebook application to update locations and track friends.â€
by Russell Shaw
February 1, 2008 at 9:02 pm · Filed under Microsoft, Mobile Advertising, Yahoo
There are some opinions bouncing around the analyst community that identify mobile messaging and advertising as trends that may have driven Microsoft to try and acquire Yahoo.
Set against the looming spectre of Google as a competitor in this space, MultiMedia Intelligence chief research officer Frank Dickson has some thought-leader thoughts on this issue.
Frank’s thoughts, which he emailed me today, largely relate to the wishes of cell carriers to add additional revenue not tied in to subscription cash flows, and the demonstrated ability of Yahoo! and Microsoft to facilitate mobile advertising and its promise of related income to the carriers.
Frank sent a research brief to me earlier today that lays out the issues and opportunities:
Mobile operators are driving toward an increasingly rich array of data services to sustain growth. Mobile handsets are becoming increasingly powerful media devices, capable of providing a rich media (and advertising) experience. Finally, the Internet is emerging on mobile devices and mobile networks.
The result is advertisers putting their cross-hairs on the world’s 3 billion cellular subscribers. New cellular based advertising techniques will not only deliver display ads but also integrates community, participation and interactivity into the media experience.
“Microsoft and Yahoo! have both identified the promise of mobile advertising and have been frantically attacking the space,” according to Frank Dickson, Chief Research Officer for MultiMedia Intelligence. “In the early 90s, Microsoft scoffed at the promise of the Internet and gave Google a massive jump-start in the market. It will not make that mistake with mobile.”
It will be both fun and fascinating to see how this monumental acquisition process plays out. Even more interesting will be what revenue-enhancing mobile apps a Yahoo-enhanced Microsoft will bring to carriers and end-users.
by Russell Shaw
December 6, 2007 at 11:49 pm · Filed under Instant Messaging, News, Yahoo
Earlier today, I reported on my BlackBerry blog that:
BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has just announced they are teaming up with airline JetBlue and Yahoo to offer free, in-flight, Wi-Fi web connections for Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerrys (such as the BlackBerry Curve 8320) as well as laptops.
The service will allow passengers to access customized Yahoo mail and Yahoo instant messenger services on their laptops or to access corporate e-mails on Wi-Fi enabled versions of the popular Blackberry device from RIM,†Reuters reports.
A RIM spokesperson tells Reuters the first JetBlue flight to offer this service will be on Tuesday, December 11. The flight will be JFK to San Francisco, Flight 641.
I have some opinions on this. First, when you are talking about moving 550 mph (maybe 600 mph with a good tailwind push), that’s being mobile.
And if you are talking about using your WiFi-enabled BlackBerry (such as the BlackBerry Curve 8320, or your laptop for real-time communication at 35,000 feet, that’s being a serious mobile messenger.
Many’s the time I’ve transcontinentally flown, and wanted to whip out my BlackBerry or laptop (both which go wherever I go) send a text, check my email, etc.
But then I stare out the window at a bank of fluffy clouds below us, and start humming “Both Sides Now” by Judy Collins (and yea, I do know Joni Mitchell wrote it).
Or, there’s the cart just two rows in front of my seat. Cart bearing a mini bottle of Merlot that when sipped, will help pass the time.
Or both of the above scenarios present themselves in parallel.
All of a sudden, I make the transition from a Type A type of guy to a mellow chilled out dude.
And when I get that way, texting or any type of technical alternatives to get back in touch with the world seven miles below becomes a highly distasteful notion.
One more sip, and I stop thinking about the need to mobile message. It’s an hour, 20 minutes ’til we land, and I can turn my BlackBerry back on in non-airplane mode.
Text me then, for I will have landed.
by Russell Shaw
December 6, 2007 at 11:33 pm · Filed under SMS, Yahoo
Did you know it is possible to initiate a texting session straight from your Yahoo! Mail Inbox?
Works on both Yahoo! Mail’s mobile version as well as via the Yahoo! Mail you’d run on your notebook or even desktop.
Here’s how to enable:
1. Open your Yahoo! Mail (hmm, ya think?) application.
2. Open your Yahoo! Mail Inbox.
3. Tap or click the letter “T” on your keypad or keyboard. This will automatically open a text window.
4. Type in a phone number you would like to start texting with, as well as a text message below.
5. Click Send. Your text message is on its way.
Now wouldn’t it be great if everything else was that easy?
by Russell Shaw
November 27, 2007 at 12:37 pm · Filed under News, Yahoo, mobile social networking
We learn from Silicon Valley-based news and gossip site Valleywag that Yahoo has plans to launch a social messaging service it is calling MyM.
“From what we’ve heard, MyM sounds a lot like Meebo, the website which allows users to access multiple instant-messaging clients at once. MyM will actually hook into Meebo, as well as Friendster, MySpace, LiveJournal, AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo’s own IM software,” Valleywag reports.
No reason that MyM can’t be mobile.
Yet befitting Valleywag’s strong gossip and debunking self-awareness, the site also quotes unidentified internal Yahoo! types as feeling MyM is “awkward,” and that competitors are likely to block the service.
If competitors try to block this thing, I can promise you there will be very loud rumblings in Commentstan (my term for blog Comment fields).
Right now, the service is in pre-beta invitation mode. Don’t you hate that? Now you know how those folks who were denied admittance to trendy discos in the late 1970s felt when the bouncers told them not to darken their doorways.
by Imran Ali
October 9, 2007 at 4:51 pm · Filed under Google, Jaiku, Platforms, Twitter, Yahoo
Google! Yahoo! Google! Yahoo! Goohoo! Yoogle! Yahoo! Yeeaaaaaarrghh! It seems every service I use these days - Flickr, del.icio.us, Feedburner, Upcoming, Writely - is swallowed up whole by one of the two giants ot the Web Cold War…fighting their proxy wars, startup by startup!
Earlier today Jyri Engstrom’s Jaiku was acquired by Google, for an undisclosed sum, notaby to integrate Jaiku’s ‘Activity streams and mobile presence…where we believe Google can add a lot of value for users…a great addition to Google’s current application and mobile teams’.
It’s perhaps no accident that mobility is namechecked twice - a revealing comment, with the recent uptick in speculation that Google’s telephony play is less a handset and more a handset-agnostic OS or application suite.
Jaiku’s life stream has always been more elegantly implemented than its more popular counterpart, Twitter, enabling users to blend external RSS feeds with Jaiku posts; indeed, my own Jaiku account is automated, simply scraping RSS from Twitter, Flickr, my blog and other personal RSS sources.
Augmenting this life stream with Google’s suite of applications paints a compelling vision…
- Address books - GTalk user statuses set automagically; kinda like Tim O’Reilly’s vision of a smart address book.
- Blending social networks - bringing Jaiku’s life streams to the Orkut community, particularly its booming Asian and South American communities could help accelerate adoption of Google’s much vaunted Facebook-killer.
- Location aware contacts - user’s post their location via Jaiku, instantly marking themselves on Google Maps; great for iPhone users!
- Presence-based telephony - know the availability of a GTalk user, or Gmail contact, before placing a call
- Work status - let colleagues know when you’re working in Google Docs; perhaps great for timekeeping!
- Photocasting - let Jaiku syndicate your recently posted Picasa photos to your social network.
Couple this with Jaiku’s support for third-party data sources through RSS and you have a very powerful multiplexing engine; an open platform for signalling social and personal presence across the web and across mobile networks.
With these possibilities in mind - Jaiku may be one of the most significant acquisitions Google has ever made.
