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Yahoo, best known as an Internet portal welcoming millions of consumers, is undergoing a transition to appeal to a different audience: software developers.
Yahoo, best known as a Web portal, is stepping up efforts to reach developers outside the company and make its Web sites programmable. The shift to providing a platform to encourage developers to build applications underscores the importance of partner networks, or “ecosystems,” for Web companies looking to drive traffic and audience.
In September, for the first time, the company hosted a Hack Day where it invited outside developers to mingle with its engineers and write ad hoc “mashup” Web applications using Yahoo’s online services.
Making it easy for third-party companies to build applications that use Yahoo’s myriad services, from photo-sharing to search, helps drive traffic to Yahoo sites. Mashups could also drive awareness of Yahoo’s lineup, such as its instant-messaging service, executives said.
“We don’t think of ourselves as a portal company anymore. We think of ourselves as a communications application platform,” said Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo’s vice president of product strategy.
Many practices used by development tool companies are starting to become “part of the culture” at Yahoo, Horowitz said. These practices include holding developer conferences and publishing application programming interfaces (APIs) when new Yahoo services are launched, he noted. |
