Yahoo Triples OpenID Accounts To Over 370 Million

OpenID is the single sign on frame work that allows users to use a single Identity across the web. It works by assigning your details to a domain.

So far Yahoo is the biggest company to join the OpenID revolution! Previously there were about 120 million users using the framework, but now that total has almost tripled!

Got a YahooID? Get your OpenID.

The service will be available on January 30, says Yahoo. But in public beta. This will allow Yahoo users to log in to more than 9,000 OpenId compliant websites. Yahoo will also be integrating their Sign-In Seal feature, meaning users can view an uploaded image before giving over credentials – the feature is widely used by financial institutions and is designed to reduce the effectiveness of phishing attempts.

This is great news for OpenID. Come on all the others. Especially Digg who have been rumored as integrating OpenID into their site for months.

Hack London: BBC & Yahoo Host Hacking Day

Yes thats right, the BBC and Yahoo are hosting a web development hacking day. Those attending will be encouraged to play around with the technology to see what kind of innovative applications they can produce over the weekend. The day aims to show web developers how to get more out of the data feeds and interfaces the two organisations make available. So basically creating sites using their RSS feeds, API’s and other tools.

Like so many big comanies the BBC and Yahoo have masses of data that os free to access using these API’s and data feeds. For instance at the BBC these data feeds and interfaces provides access to TV listings, breaking news stories and weather data.

Of course these 2 companies are not expecting everyone to use the tools blind, they will have a bunch of developers and helpers around when needed to describe the data they can access and calls  

At a recent Yahoo hackday a group created a blogging purse that had a pedometer and camera phone built in so it could take a snap every 100 steps that was then uploaded to a blog!

Prizes would be given out for the best hack of the weekend, said Mr Cashmore, but the event was not about showing off coding skills. So these would be for inovation or creativity I presume.

Subscribe to the RSS feed to hear about some of the tools they come up with.

Source: BBC News

Yahoo Photo Users Not Happy About Moving to Flickr

I just read some comments on the Yahoos Yodel Anicdotal Blog post about swapping over Yahoo Photos to Yahoo’owned site Flickr. It seems that large proportion of the comments are from users who are not ahppy with being moved or the way it is being done. I am also going to assume that the same proportion of Yahoo Photo’s actual users are not happy. So my own stats might be considered “crap”. So as the news is only about 24 hours old and there are 8 comments so far…

From my very quick research there is 75% of unhappy users. Please do not quote me on these or put silly comments, I have warned you about them!

I have quoted a few examples below:

oh yes! will the photos in my yahoogroups photos section be deleted too?

I just converted to Flickr and now I’m pretty annoyed. My other yahoo sites that relied on yahoo photos are no longer working. This includes content that I pay for, such as Personals. How do I go about getting this fixed?

The transfer to Flickr (yet another moronic social networking-themed site) does not maintain the folders in which yahoo photos originally resided. I have absolutely no interest in Flickr’s omg! features and much preferred Yahoo Photos. Words are not adequate to express my profound disappointment with Yahoo – as a yahoo user and (very small) shareholder. The company appears to be abandoning everything that works and works well for flash-in-the-pan features … some sort of Web 2.0 run amok frenzy, I guess.

To be honest I think some of these people should find out more about Flickr I am surte Yahoo are doing it for the right reason. They have even said that some of their team are now in the Flickr team so surely they would want to help the transition and help the new usrers around the system. Afterall if Flickr is that bad why would Yahoo buy them?

Yahoo Wants To Get Into Social Networking

Recently there has been alot of major takeover talks linked to Yahoo. There is now another rumur that Yahoo want to take over Bebo. This follows the rumur that Yahoo made an offer for Facebook. The still want to get into social networking.

Well this latest rumur has come from the UK newspaper The Telegraph (which i read every now and again). This report was that Yahoo is looking, and may pay as much as $1 billion for Bebo. One snitch, The Telegraph isn’t exactly known for breaking tech news stories, as you can see from a quote of their source – “according to silicon valley gossip”.

So the only thing i can say to that is “unconfirmed rumur” that Yahoo is is going to pay $1 billion for Bebo!

If this is true then it does still show that Yahoo wants to get into the social networking circle.

Update: Michael Arrrington has done some research to see if Bebo is worth $1 Billion . From the results seen it looks like if Yahoo are going to buy Beboit might be a mistake, seeing as how Facebook is still expanding at a greater rate.

Yahoo Maps Regeneration

Today Yahoo announced it had changed to a new software platform for their Yahoo Maps application.

The new platform was developed totally in-house, this allows changes and upgrades to be relatively simple compared to using third-party software.

Yahoo has been using mapping technology from deCarta Inc. for over five years, but with the new platform, Yahoo Maps will perform better, offer more precise results and make backend upgrades easier to implement, Yahoo said.

Internet companies have in recent years put much effort in improving their online mapping sites, which have become critical to their local search services. Almost always linked, local search engines and online maps let people place addresses on a map, find business listings, obtain driving directions, view aerial and satellite images, read reviews for restaurants and other establishments and find entertainment event information, among other things.

The new platform will not disrupt the mapping service’s existing APIs (application programming interfaces) nor will third-party applications built using them require retooling.

On Wednesday, Yahoo Maps users will also see more detailed renditions of neighborhoods and buildings in New York City and San Francisco. Yahoo will deliver similar improvements to other cities’ maps this year. Yahoo also enhanced the way the site prints out maps.

So from all this i think the new Yahoo Maps will be faster and more precise but im not sure it will help them beat their competition already.

Multimap Goes Google

Multimap, the original mapping website with static images that really annoy you has now launched its “Google-like” system to the public.

Multimap is describe on their “About Us” page

Multimap is Europe’s most popular mapping website, offering a range of free, useful services to assist with everyday life.

This maybe true as they have alot of data availible to the user, But the old interface was just so annoying to use, especially when Google and Yahoo started releasing their “pannable mapping”

This new version is pretty neat. Its obvious where they get their inspiration! Have a quick look yourself. After using for a few minutes I did find a few bugs and to me it does seem as thought it should still be in beta. It could well be in beta as they clearly say the old site is availible, its hard to know if the old version is still there as this new version is still incomplete or jsut because they have not integrated Ordnance Survey mapping.

I personally work for a GIS team and have created a mapping system for Dorset County, UK. Called DorsetExplorer. So I know how hard it is dealing with Ordnance Survey and their licencing!

Altogether this tool is fairly neat, with the ammount of users using Multimap it shouldn’t be too hard for new users to switch and many of them will undoubtedly have use Google or Yahoo maps.

I am interested to see how they integrate Ordnance Survey Mapping onto their site. We shall wait and see!

Yahoo Messenger Goes Browser Based

Launched today. Yahool Webmessenger. Very similar to MSN Web Messenger, except this version is written in flash.

This Version is completely browser base. Its compatible with the 4 main bowsers (Yahoo’s top 4 anyway).

- Internet Explorer
- FireFox
- Safari
- Opera

On top of this you are able to connect and chat to Windows Live Messenger users. This might well convince some people who use both messengers to choose one. Of course the most popular is Windows Live / MSN Messenger.

But with this addition to Yahoo’s ammunition. They could now start to eat further into Microsofts user base and steal them away.

There have certianly been demand for web enabled messaging services, and there have been a few successful multi-messaging-platform sites out there. eBuddy and Meebo for example. So Yahoo have jumped on the band wagon and have gone a slightly different direction to everyone else.

Being built using flash certainly can add functionality and look great, they have done the same thing with Yahoo maps, by making a flash version of that too. The other two big players in both areas have gone the opposite and generally seems more successful, Google’s Maps & GMail along with Micorsofts Live Local and MSN Webmessenger. The other possible reason they are not generally first choice could be the fact that they dont seem to create anything first. It could be just development time, but Google Maps and MSN Webmessenger were out quite a while before Yahoo jumped in with an alternative.

Personally I won’t be leaving Window Live Messenger any time soon. I used Yahoo Messenger for a bit but i didn’t get on with it. Plus i have a have a Windows Mobile phone which allows me to use the Live Messenger using Internet Explorer Mobile.