Exposing the Web’s Biggest (Free) BillboardMicah Laaker | Big (D)esign Conference2009.05.30

•Who?• Director of User

Experience, Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS)

• Work for 3rd-party Developers and Publishers

• APIs, Web Services, Applications, and RSS

COMMENTS: I’m Micah Laaker, Director of User Experience for Yahoo!’s Open Strategy, which basically means I lead a team of tremendously talented designers and prototypers on our efforts to support 3rd-party developers and publishers (a.k.a. people like you, who create interesting and innovative Web-connected products). Yahoo! offers over 40 services and APIs to the world, ranging from Data (think: content) to Services (think: Mail and Search). Last, but maybe most important of all, I’m from Omaha. You can ask anyone I work with back in the Bay Area; they hear it over and over again: I’m proud to be from Omaha, and love the creative spark here that kick-started what I’ve done to date.

Agenda• Overview of Yahoo!’s reach

• Review open components

• Profile, Social Graph, Activity Stream, Open Canvases

• Updates sources and experiences

• How to leverage

Total time spent online

13%

Total time spentat Yahoo!

COMMENTS: Of that usage, more than 10% of that time is spent on Yahoo.com pages and applications.

Yahoo! has audience.

Yahoo! Home Page

300m

Yahoo! Mail

300m

Yahoo! Messenger

90m

My Yahoo!

40m

Y!OS• Open Canvases

• Activity streams

• Foundational elements:

• Profile

• Social Graph

Profile

1 Single Profile for the networkConsistent user reflection everywhere

Social Graph

Connections Graph2-way confirmed relationships

Open Canvases

SearchYahoo! SearchUse microformats to alter display

Mail

Yahoo! MailApps can use Mail-specific features

My Yahoo!

My Yahoo!Modules allow quick App dashboard with profile and social user data

YAP

Cody I

Matt L

Yahoo! Canvas ViewFull-page App experience with rich interaction, profile, and social data

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

Addicted to…Trivia, quizzes, and quotes about TV

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

What’s Cookin’Find great dinner and drink pairings

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

Mint.com Personal FinanceTrack your bank & investment accts.

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

LexulousHead-to-head Scrabble game

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

Gas Prices by GasBuddy.comFind the lowest prices for fuel

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

Mafia WarsRaise and run your own Mafia

COMMENTS: From Pipes, I began working on one of Yahoo!’s recent efforts. Our Application Platform allows anyone to take content and experiences from their product and launch them into a Yahoo! canvas. Think of our “Apps” as your site inside of Yahoo!... i.e. meeting your users where they already are. Users can add any apps they wish to places like My Yahoo!, where millions of users start (and end) each day. Here, for example, you can see one of Watercooler’s (a great company down the road from us in Mountain View) TV-themed Apps for Arrested Development both on its own full canvas page and as a widget on My Yahoo!.

Apps publish to UpdatesChoose which activities fire Updateswhich then drive others to your App

Activity Stream

Where do Updates come from?

Inputs• Network properties

• Services from around the Web

• 3rd-party Applications

• Open Applications

• OAuth Apps

Yahoo! Services publishing Updates

events

3rd-party products publishing Updates

events

Easily link your Web accounts to Yahoo!

Updates

Link up off-network servicesAdd 21 services in one fell swoop

MyBlogLog offers additional feedsmybloglog.com/buzz/e_profile_serv.php

JS-Kit integration800k blogs allow Yahoo! sign-in and Updates publishing

JS-Kit integration resultsCross-web comments shared with friends (and world)

Blog Posts publish to UpdatesIncrease distribution of your content

Blog Posts publish to UpdatesYou control icon, link, and language around your Updates posts

Updates Everywhere

Aggregate

Front PageMost recent Updates from around Yahoo! and the Web

Yahoo! MailConstant stream of friends’ Yahoo! and Web activity

iGoogle gadgetSame content, different environment

Contextual

Yahoo! SportsSports-only filter of friends’ actions

Yahoo! SportsAlso see what others are doing

Yahoo! BuzzWhat content my friends find hot

Yahoo! MusicFriend-filtered ratings/reviews

WP sidebar3rd-party IntegrationUser-specific Updates easy to share

Wrap it up, B.

COMMENTS: Just as an example of how powerful this platform is for getting your content in front of Yahoo! users, this is an App I created with some others in our group in about 10 hours for our recent Hack Day (an event we throw quarterly to quickly try out ideas by building working prototypes within 24 hours). It takes what Apps my friends have installed, subtracts the Apps I’ve installed, and gives me back a recommendation for which Apps I should consider installing (as my friends are already active therein). 10 hours. That’s it... and most of that time was just spent on the CSS and layout. Instantly deployed and available to any Yahoo! user for installation.

Bringing it all togetherapps.yahoo.com/-octyip6g

YQL (Yahoo! Query Language)Easy means to collect + filter Updates

COMMENTS: Just as an example of how powerful this platform is for getting your content in front of Yahoo! users, this is an App I created with some others in our group in about 10 hours for our recent Hack Day (an event we throw quarterly to quickly try out ideas by building working prototypes within 24 hours). It takes what Apps my friends have installed, subtracts the Apps I’ve installed, and gives me back a recommendation for which Apps I should consider installing (as my friends are already active therein). 10 hours. That’s it... and most of that time was just spent on the CSS and layout. Instantly deployed and available to any Yahoo! user for installation.

Updates as Content MineExtract meaningful info from friends’ events to highlight relevant content

Use Open Apps to Publish UpdateApp clicks result in events others can see, driving more traffic to your content

COMMENTS: Just as an example of how powerful this platform is for getting your content in front of Yahoo! users, this is an App I created with some others in our group in about 10 hours for our recent Hack Day (an event we throw quarterly to quickly try out ideas by building working prototypes within 24 hours). It takes what Apps my friends have installed, subtracts the Apps I’ve installed, and gives me back a recommendation for which Apps I should consider installing (as my friends are already active therein). 10 hours. That’s it... and most of that time was just spent on the CSS and layout. Instantly deployed and available to any Yahoo! user for installation.

Common ComponentsOpen Apps leverage pre-built components like Sharing

How to Leverage Yahoo!

Lay the foundation

Create/update your Profileprofiles.yahoo.com

Add Connectionsprofiles.yahoo.com/contacts.php?p=1

Add Outside Servicesprofiles.yahoo.com/share_more.php

Add Applicationsapps.yahoo.com

Download SDKs

Mac OS X and iPhone integrationcoming very soon

Grab our existing APIs/servicesdeveloper.yahoo.com/everything.html

Build App(s)

Build an Applicationdeveloper.yahoo.com/dashboard

Open Application (on Yahoo!)developer.yahoo.com/yap

OAuth Application (on your site)developer.yahoo.com/yap

Benefits• Free

• Large, engaged, & diverse audience

• 1 point of engagement, with multiple endpoints

• Complementary, not contrary, to Web standards

Summary• Lay the foundation profiles.yahoo.com

• Get the SDKs developer.yahoo.com/social

• Build an App developer.yahoo.com/yap

• Use YQL developer.yahoo.com/yql

• Publish to Yahoo! Updates developer.yahoo.com/updates

COMMENTS: To try out the different products I just shared, be sure to go to developer.yahoo.com. Specifically, be sure to try each of these (YUI, BOSS, YAP, YQL, and Updates) to use our latest and greatest products. By doing so, you’ll save yourself the need to learn (the hard way) the same lessons I learned before (about recreating services and reaching users where they’re already at). Instead, *you* can dive into building cool, innovative products that solve problems you want to tackle.

In Conclusion• Learn more about the

Yahoo! Open Strategy: developer.yahoo.com/yos/

• Contact:Micah Laakerlaaker.com/micahmicah@laaker.comtwitter: @mlaaker