Yahoo

Some news remain rather unnoticed sometimes although they could be relevant on a larger scale. Dmitry Shechtman of phpb.cc had a closer look at MyBlogLog’s announcement of Twitter support and discovered that MyBlogLog is about to support OpenID which was confirmed by MyBlogLog’s community manager Robyn Tippins.

Users can already add their OpenID to their profile page (see screenshot below), though they can’t use it yet. Of course, it is a good idea to add support for OpenID because MyBlogLog seems to be heading for an online identity provider; support for Twitter is an indication, I think. However this moves makes me wonder what Yahoo’s stance on sign-on and registration really is (MyBlogLog was acquired by Yahoo in January).

There has been a massive brouhaha about Flickr’s (another Yahoo property) announcement to require Yahoo user names in January. Something similar has happened just a few weeks ago when Upcoming.org turned to upcoming.yahoo.com; a Yahoo ID is required there as well. So on one hand Yahoo is pushing its own Single Sign-On system, on the other hand MyBlogLog is about to support OpenID.

Is Yahoo just experimenting with OpenID or is this another strange strategy no one really understands? By the way, Yahoo ID’s can be used as OpenID’s already. Check out Simon Willison’s idproxy.net.

As you can see on the right sidebar of this blog I have joined MyBlogLog yesterday. I have read several positive blog posts about the service since I started my own blog but admittedly I was reluctant to join another community and didn’t know what to expect. Also the name of the company, and the logo didn’t (and still don’t) appeal to me. Sorry, to say this.

So what made me join it anyway? Quite frankly, I felt bored yesterday, spotted the Recent Readers widget on Rex Dixon’s Technically Speaking blog (worth reading, check it out), and thought I should give it a try. Maybe the buzz about Yahoo’s recent acquisition of MyBlogLog was also a reason. I don’t know.

MyBlogLog seems to be a convenient way networking with other bloggers, building communities, and also seeing who has been adventurous enough to visit my blog. It’s great to see a face rather an anonymous IP address in my log files. So it hopefully helps establishing new contacts, and maybe even generating some additional traffic to the blog. Very selfish, I know.

According to a PC World blog post Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Vodafone will develop a code of conduct promoting freedom of expression and setting guidelines on how companies will deal with censorship and other governmental interference.

The code of conduct will be developed in co-operation with NGO’s and academics. Among those are the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, Human Rights Watch, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, and many others. Just have a look at the press release.

I think that’s actually a great initiative, especially as signatories should be hold accountable. In the past companies like Google and Yahoo have been heavily criticised because they have co-operated with Chinese authorities to censor content and prosecute dissidents. Hopefully some other companies join in acting as a counterbalance to governmental interference.

Yahoo has launched a very cool new service called World Explorer. This service makes use of Flickr’s geotagged photos and all other tags associated with them.

Just query for a location and you will see a Yahoo Map of the location on the left. The map also shows geotagged places on top of it. Hover over a tag and you will see all photos which were geotagged by Flickr users on the right. The tags also reveal some additional tags. Hover over them and some more photos are displayed.

Maybe it is best to give an example: Query for London. Some of the geotagged places are Camden, Brick Lane, and Kings Cross. Hover over Brick Lane and tags like Shoreditch, Spitalfields and Kingsland Road are displayed. For each tag (Brick Lane, Spitalfields,…) you will see photos on the right. If they are not appropriate you are able to delete them so they won’t show the next time.

World Explorer is a great service. It helps getting an idea of a location you have never been to before. There are also two more similar services: Night Explorer which just shows night shots, and Trip Explorer which helps planning trips. But you have guessed that already, don’t you?