Yahoo! Expands Open Web Platform Plans

Ian Lamont writes "Yahoo has announced it is further opening its Web platform to developers and moving closer to a Facebook-style social networking concept. Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh made the announcement at the Web 2.0 Expo, and said that while Yahoo already has open APIs for some services, it will expand the open API concept to other areas and make it more consistent for developers, while boosting the 'social' aspect of its services for its members. Analysts don't expect this to increase Microsoft's interest in Yahoo!. In fact, recent comments from Steve Ballmer suggest that Microsoft will give up entirely."

Re:And how does this help them against Google?

[SashaMan]

Google gets this adoption b/c it has its fingers into every online ad outlet known to the Internet gods.

Wrong - Google gets this adoption because it has the best search technology. I don't care how many ad outlets Google has - if it didn't have the best search technology no one would use it.

Re:Maybe we shouldn't have said anything

[Enderandrew]

Every internet company that does business in China abides by China's laws. Google was the only one to publicly struggle with the concept, and fight it for a while. So that makes them the bad guys.

Yahoo is the company that VOLUNTEERED data to hand over journalists who wrote about democracy.

Re:Sounds familiar

[IsaacSchlueter]

Um... a reactive maneuver to *counter* Google?

statement of intent [google.com]
yahoo joins open social [yahoo.com]
yahoo joins open social [google.com]

This whole "open initiative" business shouldn't be news to anyone with any clue as to what's going on.

Granted, I've got a bit more clue to what's going on with this, since I'm a tech lead on this project at Yahoo. That intent agreement isn't just corporate BS. We (that is, actual programmers, not just CxO's) are talking with them on a regular basis. This is very much a cooperative initiative.

"Open" isn't just a new buzzword. Yeah, they've got their stuff and we've got ours, and we compete fiercely in a few areas. But they're both big companies, and it's a big internet, and there's a lot that Y! and Google can do together that benefits both parties.

People just like soap operas, and when there isn't a real soap opera, they manufacture one.

Full disclosure: in case you missed it above, I work at Yahoo, on our open social project, which is a big part of what this announcement was about.