Aug 24

Yahoo Buzz Opens-Up to All Publishers

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites, Yahoo

This article was written on August 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

Back in February we told you about Yahoo Buzz, a service Yahoo pushed into beta that you could easily compare to Digg. Yahoo described it as a new way for people to tell everybody what they thought was cool and in the process, help make Yahoo.com even better. Yahoo Buzz tries to determine the best stories on the web based upon votes, emails and searches. Because it was beta when it launched, they were allowing news articles from a limited list of 100 pre-approved news publishers to be buzzed up. Eventually the list grew, but it was still limiting.

Yahoo! Buzz.png

It’s been about six months since Yahoo Buzz launched and now Yahoo has decided to “open-up” Buzz meaning users can Buzz up articles they find from any publisher on the web, if those publishers include a Buzz up! button. This is good news for publishers because those who have already experienced a “Yahoo! Buzz Effect” have talked about the surge in traffic they experienced once Yahoo placed an article on their homepage. TechCrunch said that one of their articles making it to one of the bottom links in the Yahoo Buzz section resulted in their highest traffic day ever.

Content that people can Buzz Up include stories, photos, and video, you just have to look for sites that include the Buzz Up button. This leads us to a question for you guys. Have you gotten in to using Yahoo Buzz or are you more comfortable sticking with the originals like Reddit and Digg or even StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us? We’re still contemplating whether a Buzz Up button would be something worth adding to CyberNet.

Source: Yodel Anecdotal

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Jul 11

Yahoo Acquires Inquisitor for Safari

Posted in: Freeware, Mac, Newly Released, search, Software, Today's Chili, Yahoo

This article was written on May 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

inquisitor.pngarrow Mac Mac only arrow
Yahoo has made an acquisition today that will probably catch some Mac users off guard. They bought the rights to a Safari add-on called Inquisitor, which is pictured to the right.

Once installed Inquisitor enhances the search box in Safari so that it will pull in live results as you type. The results are prioritized based upon the user’s search history, and it’s also able to auto-complete the results as you type them.

I tried out Inquisitor, and I can definitely attest to its awesomeness. It’s very sleek, and currently lets you pick between Yahoo or Google as the default search engine to be used for the live results. It’s pretty obvious that because Yahoo just acquired the application that it would be the default option, and it is.

After setting up Inquisitor you can change the default search engine to Google (if you want). This is done by opening Safari’s preferences, and then selecting the Search tab as seen below. Then hit the drop-down menu for a list of available search engines:

inquisitor options.png

After getting our Mac’s I tried using only Safari for a few hours, but there were some things that I just couldn’t grow accustomed to. This add-on makes me really want to start using Safari again, but maybe I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that some Firefox developer will create an extension that works (and looks) as good as this does.

In case you’re wondering the developer of the add-on will continue to be the one who works on it, but he’s not joining Yahoo as an employee.

Inquisitor Homepage [via Inquisitor Blog]

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Jul 08

Yahoo Study Reveals Men Use iPad More than Women Do

Posted in: ipad, Today's Chili, Yahoo

image001 jpg
We all know Apple has sold somewhere near 3 gazillion iPads (at least it seems that way), but what’s the buyer breakdown? Yahoo Insights conducted a study in May looking into who exactly is using the iPad to connect to the company’s various Web offerings, including Flickr, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo News.Two months later, the company’s media research division has decided to update its findings.

The company’s verdict? Men make up around two-thirds of iPad users, and folks 35 to 44 years old comprise the largest age group (28 percent) of fans of the jumbo iPod touch tablet. Unsurprisingly, Flickr garnered the most use from lucky iPad owners, with folks using the photo-sharing Web service 143 percent more often on the tablet than on other devices, Yahoo! claims.

When it comes to early adoption, men who apparently enjoy frivolous, uninformed purchases more than women account for 66 percent of the group while women represent 34 percent, according to Yahoo. Keep in mind that these numbers were calculated from iPad users who have visited Yahoo’s Web services. However, considering the overall breakdown of Yahoo visitors is nearly split down the middle (with men taking 51 percent), it should be safe to take these numbers with something smaller than a grain of salt (a molecule of salt? Maybe a quark of salt?).

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Jun 30

Yahoo to Sell DRM-Free Music Soon?

Posted in: amazon, itunes, Music, Today's Chili, Web Sites, Yahoo

This article was written on January 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

drm The latest forming trend in digital music downloads seems to be that everyone wants to start offering DRM-free music.  Both Amazon and iTunes offer a DRM-free catalog of music as well as several other sites like eMusic. People like DRM-free because it means once they download a song or album, they can play the song on multiple devices. When Amazon’s service launched, it got rave reviews. People were generally happy with the selection, but even more happy with the price. Now there are rumors that Yahoo is wanting to get in on DRM-free fun too and that they have plans to launch a DRM Free music service sometime within 2008.

Yahoo has publicly denied that they are even working on such a project, however, the Associated Press is reporting that record executives have come to them and said that they have met with Yahoo and that they already had preliminary talks last month. They’re trying to work out a deal with major companies like Universal, Sony, Warner, and EMI to offer unprotected songs either for sale, or as part of an ad-supported  music service. When the AP went to the record companies to ask about such a deal, they simply declined to comment which could very well mean these rumors are true.

As Mashable points out, if these talks had occurred months before, it probably would have been a pretty big deal.  However, because there are other sites out there that offer DRM Free MP3s like Amazon, this isn’t really groundbreaking. Would you be happy to see yet another big name enter the scene? Eventually, I think DRM-free will be the new “norm” and consumers will be able to buy the unprotected songs anywhere they’d like. Perhaps record labels are finally realizing that sales of music and life do go on when they don’t have tight control?

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Jun 28

Yahoo Jumps in to Support OpenID… Yay!

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites, Yahoo

This article was written on January 17, 2008 by CyberNet.

While people have criticized that OpenID’s have security weaknesses and may be vulnerable to phishing attacks, more and more sites are starting to use them.  Case in point… Yahoo! Yahoo just announced support for OpenID which is huge.  In case you’re not familiar with it, OpenID is a decentralized single sign-on system meaning with one OpenID, you can sign into multiple sites. This system is great for those of us who get sick of creating a new account for every site that we use on the web.  Remembering multiple usernames and passwords can get tedious, and OpenID solves these issues.

According to Yahoo’s announcement,  this new option will be available in public beta starting on January 30th – less than two weeks away.  The fact that Yahoo joined on is huge – doing so tripled the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million! It’s clear that the project is gaining popularity all around which is great because the more people that use it, the better chance it has of becoming mainstream. Aside from Yahoo, other major sites like America Online, Orange,  Live Journal, Zoomr, and others have already joined in on the project. In all, it’s estimated that there are more than 9,000 OpenID compliant sites.

openid

From the sounds of it, Yahoo intends to get involved more deeply with the OpenID project.  Speaking to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Raj Patel, Yahoo’s director of membership and registration said, “This is just the first step in working with OpenID.” Arrington said that Patel would not confirm if Yahoo would end up becoming a “relying party” which means that users with third party OpenIDs could log into Yahoo. All that was said was that Yahoo’s goal was to move in that direction.

Yahoo conveniently has a page setup where you can learn more about OpenID and take a tour. Check that out here.

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Jun 22

Five Alternatives to Search without Google or Yahoo

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili, Yahoo

This article was written on May 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

Everybody has their favorite way to search, whether it’s Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.  I think I’ve been programmed to search Google, at least that’s what my fingers tend to automatically type when I need to do a search.

While Yahoo and Google are great ways to search, there are alternatives that may suit you better for certain searches.  Below you’ll find five alternatives that you can try out in place of the search that you regularly use.

Rollyo

RollyoRollyo stands for “Roll Your own Search Engine.”  It allows you to create and publish your own search engine giving you a customized search experience that includes only the sites and categories that you want included.  It’s supposed to help reduce the amount of irrelevant search results that you receive.

For Firefox fans, you can add any Searchroll (a compilation of sources to search) right to your Firefox searchbar.

NetTrekker

NettrekkerThis one is designed with the kids in mind. Kids are becoming tech-savvy at a young age, and this search is the perfect collaboration of age appropriate material. They have a whole line of search products just for schools and children.

Sometimes you come across web services that aren’t free, as is the case with NetTrekker. But sometimes, it’s also worth that cost.

Draze

DrazeThis one isn’t taking you away from Google or Yahoo, instead it’s comparing the results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN all in one search. It’s like Dogpile except it doesn’t include searches from Ask.com.

Each of those services return different results, so it’s nice to get the combination of results that Draze offers. When you perform a search, it will let you know where the item ranked for each of the three search sites.

Kosmix

KosmixKosmix is in the very early stages of development, and because they’re a topical search, they only have few select categories for now.

The categories that they offer include health, video games, finance, travel, US politics, and Autos. If you’re searching for something that would fit under any one of those categories, give it a try.

I did a search on “Iraq War” under the politics section, and it pulled up a page with the search results, news, blogs on the topics, and they also offered suggestions for refining the search. At the top they included a snippet from the Wikipedia page on the topic.

ChaCha

ChachaChaCha is probably one of the more original, unique ideas I’ve come across in terms of a search engine. Their focus is to provide you great results using professionals.  You’ll get a guide (this is free) who will provide you results that match your specifications.

You can perform automated searches, but if you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for, try clicking on “Chat Live with a Guide” and see if they can do better. This too is in beta.

Source: FoxNews.com
Thanks for the tip Cory!

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Jun 16

HP and Yahoo team up to deliver targeted ads… to printers

Posted in: ads, advertising, HP, printer, Today's Chili, Yahoo
Seriously. To be specific, the two companies are working on delivering targeted ads to HP’s web-connected printers, and the ads would apparently only show up when you use HP’s “scheduled delivery” service to have portions of a newspaper or magazine printed every morning. To make those ads as targeted as possible, HP says the printers would employ IP sniffing to help pin down your location, and the company says that the ads could also be targeted based on “user’s behavior as well as the content” — although it’s quick to point out that everything must be done with privacy in mind. Will folks mind having ads encroach on their own printed materials (not to mention printer ink)? Not according to HP’s Stephen Nigro, who says that HP has discovered “that people were not bothered by it,” and that part of its belief is that “you’re used to it. You’re used to seeing things with ads.”

HP and Yahoo team up to deliver targeted ads… to printers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceComputerworld  | Email this | Comments

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Jun 16

Microsoft prepping Yahoo, AIM, and Windows Live Messenger support for Kin?

Posted in: Microsoft, rumor, Today's Chili, Yahoo

The list of conspicuously missing features on Microsoft’s Kin devices is a lengthy one, but considering the target demographic, there’s at least one particularly egregious omission: instant messaging. Well-established ROM spelunker Conflipper is now reporting that Microsoft intends to add IM support in the future, though — a belief he’s presumably gleaned from looking through the latest firmware. Specifically, he mentions support for Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, and AIM, a three-pack that would come close to covering the main services most of the Kin-owning world cares about; Google Talk would be nice, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if Microsoft went without — especially considering that they’re starting from zilch.

Microsoft prepping Yahoo, AIM, and Windows Live Messenger support for Kin? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhoneArena, MobileCrunch  |  sourceTwitter (via @conflipper)  | Email this | Comments

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Jun 15

Yahoo Answers Meets Jay Leno

Posted in: Today's Chili, videos, Web Sites, Yahoo

This article was written on July 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

Yahoo! Answers on the StreetI’m not sure if you’ve visited Yahoo! Answers before, but it is a very active community where everyone tries to help each other. They even have an area dedicated to just computer and Internet related questions for those of you who are having PC problems.

The newest addition to the Yahoo! Answers family is called Answers on the Street, and stars J. Keith van Straaten. It reminds me of Jay Leno’s Jay Walking where Jay walks around the street asking people questions that they aren’t able to answer. It’s quite a spectacle if you haven’t seen it before.

Answers on the Street is a little different in the sense that they actually try to provide useful information, rather than looking for opportunities to make fun of people. As of right now there are only three videos posted, but they are pretty useful:

I really like this series, and I hope they continue to make more of these videos. It’s also nice that you can embed them on your own site, which I have done here with the home theater system video:

Source: Mashable

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Jun 06

Get Ready for a New Yahoo! Homepage

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites, Yahoo

This article was written on September 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

After a quick visit to Yahoo’s Blog, Yodel Anecdotal, you’ll see that they are testing, testing… a new Yahoo.com. Millions of people visit the Yahoo Homepage every single day which means the staff given the job of redesigning the site had a pretty important job. It’s not easy to please everybody, and people are resilient to change, so was Yahoo able to develop something that the masses will love?

Well, we’re not quite sure yet. Reuters described the changes as radical. See for yourself what it will look like:

new yahoo homepage.png

Probably the biggest change is the column you see on the left side of the page. This is where a user who is logged in will be able to link to 10-20 of the services they use most (Yahoo and non-Yahoo services will be offered). In a way they are combining their plain ole’ Yahoo search page with My Yahoo. They are calling this column the dashboard area.

At this point they aren’t going to push it out to everybody. Only a small percentage of visitors from the United States, the UK, France and India will start seeing the page tomorrow. Aside from the dashboard area, it looks like they are including all of the same elements of the current page like featured content up at the top and news items at the bottom, with Yahoo Services listed off to the right.

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