The possibilities are mouth watering: Flickr, My Web, del.icio.us all under one umbrella. Blessed we are, to live in such interesting times in Y!.

Though I honestly believe that its good for either party, the flip side is that yet another flagship Web 2.0 company goes the acquisition way. Along with webservices, ajax and community, an attribute common to all these so called Web 2.0 companies is the lack of a sustainable business model. The irony is that they need a veteran - and now in hindsight called Web 1.0 - company to buy and foster them.

On a related note, people often ask me in my webservices orientation classes about what the business model is for webservices. And I can't help but say 'tell me if you know one'. Honestly, there isn't any - at least it isn't obvious. The business model, or lack thereof of one, is perhaps the biggest reason why Web 2.0 is being dubbed Bubble 2.0.

Three success stories of our times, sites that our generation - at least the geek community - has probably spent a lot of its time on, all three of them Web 2.0 companies, have now been bought: livejournal, flickr and delicious.

It remains to be seen if any of the remaining ones (who?) can sustain on their own.

Interesting times, nevertheless.

Tags: yahoo
Current Mood: excited

Way to go GOOG, all the best in your efforts to become more and more like Y! :P

Tags: google, orkut, random, web, yahoo

Jeffrey McManus has written an awesome post about why the Y! Maps API is better than that of brand X here. It is a fun read, read it even if you don't give a damn about Y! or maps or brand X or web services.

Hope ye all have checked out my featured app. Here are a few more that make use of the Maps API ( from the mailing list )

• http://api.maps.yahoo.com/Maps/V1/AnnotatedMaps?appid=bayview53207&xmlsrc=http://www.gobayview.com/map_yahoo/rss.php


• http://api.maps.yahoo.com/Maps/V1/AnnotatedMaps?appid=vinceeats&xmlsrc=http://lucidit.com/test/sideways.xml


• http://api.maps.yahoo.com/Maps/V1/AnnotatedMaps?appid=artlungmaps&xmlsrc=http://sandiegobloggers.com/newmap/data.xml.php

Its simplicity is making it quite popular, already!

Tags: tech, webservices, yahoo

You can read all about the API here: http://developer.yahoo.net/maps. Being a part of this has been the one of most satisfying moments professionally, so far. The fact that this happened on the same day is no co-incidence. Being a part of this race makes the whole thing more challenging and enthralling. Gopal did submit a story on the Y! Maps API to slashdot. Never mind the slashdot crowd, I read slashdot for the comments :D.

By the way, the Grease monkey script that I wrote is a featured app on http://developer.yahoo.net. You can read instructions on how to use it here. You can download the script here. This is my first Grease monkey script and I am absolutely in love with it. I hope to make more additions so that it would use all the features of the API.

This is the mailing list for the maps web service API.

The API works with all geoRSS compliant feeds. You can get an appid from here and construct a request: http://api.maps.yahoo.com/Maps/V1/AnnotatedMaps?appid=< Your_AppId_Goes_Here >&xmlsrc=< Geo_RSS_Feed_Goes_Here>.

You are welcome to modify my script to make it work for other sites that you think could use the Y! Maps API. If you think there are any such, let me know.

If you have any feedback on the Y! Developer Network or the maps API in general, this is the place to go.

Have fun!

Tags: tech, webservices, yahoo
Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: key strokes and random hallway chatter in office

Yahoo 360 is live today. If you are not on, read no longer just go check it out!. Get someone to invite you, (leave me a message if you want an invite) you need to have a Y! id of course and thats it, you are away!! I personally think it's uber cool.

If you don't know what Y! 360 is and you are still reading this, this for you: Y! 360 lets you have your own homepage, share photos, add and manage friends, write blogs, manage your existing Y! groups, all in one place!

Use it and let us know your feedback!

PS: The team outing was just amazing.

Tags: web, yahoo
Current Mood: exhausted