For the last six months or so, it's been a war between Yahoo and Google to see who can outdo each other. They're often releasing competing products at nearly the same time, but
Google Maps has held the lead on coolest map for a while now. Yahoo finally countered today,
releasing their beta maps, which work much like Google's, though it uses flash instead of javascript. I kind of like the little video game-style radar map in the upper right to show where you are in the bigger picture and the directions feature closeups on the left pane when expanded. Apparently all the cool API stuff works in it already, and
they've released an events browser to show that off as well.
posted by mathowie
on Nov 3, 2005 -
60 comments
Yahoo gets social. Yahoo's new search is designed around your contact list. Save a few bookmarks with some notes and the next time anyone within two degrees of you searches on that topic, they'll see your bookmarks above random search results. Oh, and
it's got tags too. Will this kill search engine gaming? What's Google going to do to compete, buy
delicious and incorporate that?
posted by mathowie
on Jun 28, 2005 -
28 comments
When stupid laws attack:
this article points out that
the widely syndicated article about thwarting the copy protection of sony's CDs is a direct violation of the
DMCA. Will news directors at Reuters, Yahoo, and CNN be seeing fines and jail time soon? How many times does it have to be pointed out that the DMCA restricts free speech as it attempts to thwart piracy at any cost? (via
k5)
posted by mathowie
on May 24, 2002 -
10 comments
Boy Scouts: 1 Gay Memebers: 0 Court Says Boy Scouts Can Bar Gays, which is slightly troubling, in that a psuedo-national organization can make rules that go against government policy. I don't see how a scoutmaster being gay has anything to do with teaching kids how to tie knots and go camping though.
posted by mathowie
on Jun 28, 2000 -
52 comments
This is one for discussion. Last week, I read an article debating whether or not photography was a true art form like painting or drawing, or if instead it was merely a reflection of reality and not artistic. With that in mind, when we see photos like
this one,
this one, and
this one, why do we assume that any part of what was captured was the truth? Is the camera an impartial observer, or is the photographer staging these images as a painter would? Do you think a photograph has enough reality to be considered the truth, or is a photograph a miniaturized view of reality, depending on what you point a camera at? I'm curious to hear people's thoughts, as I see groups on every side of the issue spinning these photos to support their cause.
posted by mathowie
on Apr 22, 2000 -
26 comments
Bantu is the holy grail of instant messaging apps. The people behind it have been working on this for a while, and they're now offering a web-based, java client that can talk to
ICQ,
MSN, and
Yahoo instant message clients. If it were a client side application, I'd probably use it, I'm not a big fan of leaving a browser window open all the time. Another drawback is that it can't reach AIM users.
posted by mathowie
on Feb 20, 2000 -
3 comments
Well, that was quick. Last week Clintion & Reno urge the FBI to go into a full investigation of the DoS attacks of Yahoo, eBay, etc., and they're already
suspecting it was German crackers. They don't actually say how or why they suspect them, other than the program used in the attacks might have been German. It'd be nice if they could actually show that the attacks originated from German IP addresses before they start suspecting anyone.
posted by mathowie
on Feb 14, 2000 -
0 comments
When I got started on the web in '94-95, most pages were somehow related to
Star Trek and recognizing
William Shatner as the god that he is. It's funny, but the old stuff like the Mosaic's
What's New page,
Jerry Yang's homepage, and the machine he used to house his
search engine on are all still online. Even good old Mosaic Communications' URL:
mcom.com points to Netscape. Who says the web is temporary?
posted by mathowie
on Oct 26, 1999 -
0 comments
Yahoo now has co-branding arrangements going on. I hate to see this trend continue, as I see it diluting the reputation of both companies. What's Pepto-Bismol got to do with teens having a fun summer? Anyone care to make the connection for me? What's next, Geritol sponsoring a site aimed at toddlers?
posted by mathowie
on Jul 15, 1999 -
0 comments
