While I'm happy to see CNet writing about the Yahoo! Developer Network in Yahoo seeks geek credibility, the article contains several factual errors--you know, the kind that can be easily checked by googling.
Fist off, Brad Garlinghouse did not co-found Flickr.
But that steady stream of acquisitions has created overlap with other Yahoo properties, a problem highlighted by Flickr co-founder and now Yahoo senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse in a leaked memo called the Peanut Butter Manifesto.
The co-founders of Flickr were husband and wife combo Stewart and Caterina, as is evidenced by Newsweek a few months back.
Secondly, the Yahoo! Developer Network has been around far longer than "last March."
Web heavyweights Amazon.com, eBay, Google and Microsoft have made developer loyalty a high priority. Yahoo, which launched its Developer Network last March, has taken that tack as well.
I searched for "yahoo developer network launch" and found a page full of announcements from February 2005. That's nearly two years ago.
Update: The story has been corrected. Good to see a quick turn-around on CNet like that!
Posted by jzawodn at November 21, 2006 08:27 AM
I love Yahoo APIs, but I have systematically been disappointed in YDN's TOU 1(f)(iv), which has been there for at least a year now:
http://developer.yahoo.com/terms/
which reads:
"You shall not ... (iv) or derive income from the use or provision of the Yahoo! APIs, whether for direct commercial or monetary gain or otherwise, without Yahoo!'s prior, express, written permission;"
Lots of people (myself in the 90s) fed themselves by developing applications as part of "MSDN", for lots of monetary gain, *without* MSFT's written permission. Does anyone in your YDN group actually have to be reminded of this?
Caterina Fake on Bus Dev 2.0 w APIs says it best:
http://www.caterina.net/archive/000996.html
when she says that APIs don't require PPT laden "synergy" discussions and coffee: a developer just goes in and uses the API like water -- no walled gardens. And yet YDN's API has exactly the roadblock in place, presumably to protect the walled garden.
How many years until you address this?
If you want YDN to take off to the MSDN levels, where developers actually feed themselves using your APIs (as opposed to writing non-commercial hacks), you have to lift the 1(f)(iv)s and have developers actually *trying* to feed themselves.
Thats sounds really great, i agree too, developers influence on other fields of technicality has increased considerably. I also think Microsoft,Google, Yahoo etc. should be thanked for this.
Good point. "To yahoo" isn't quite right, though. I propose, "to yahoodle", as in, "can be easily checked by yahoodling."
Yeah, that's what the "Update" at the end of my post was about. :-)
