I use Delicious to put together my show notes. I have the toolbar on my Chrome browser that I select and put in keywords. However, yesterday the toolbar sat on “Loading”. I first thought it was a internet connection problem, but soon found out that the new owners of Delicious have changed the website. But it broke the toolbar in doing so.
It made my show note collection a little harder to do. I ended up putting all my links in Google docs. When I called them up during the show, I didn’t get the pages, but the Google “You are being redirected” message. That meant I had to select each link redirect message.
A little about Delicious
Delicious is a bookmark cloud service. The program was on the chopping block by Yahoo! After public outcry, Yahoo! decided to sell the website. The new owners – Chad Hurley and Steve Chen saved it from extinction. But they also knew that Delicious was on Yahoo!’s list because the service wasn’t making the right amount of revenue. Therefore, it’s time for a change.
I read the GigaOm talking about losing their bookmarks. That was a case where they didn’t update their profile when told Delicious was switching servers. I remember the email on April 27th – it stated that if you didn’t update, your bookmarks will be gone. So no sympathy:
Yahoo! is excited to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, Hurley and Chen have firsthand expertise enabling millions of consumers to share their experiences with the world.Delicious will become part of their new Internet company, AVOS.
To continue using Delicious, you must agree to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks to AVOS. After a transition period and after your bookmarks are transferred, you will be subject to the AVOS terms of service and privacy policy. Reasons to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks
Continue uninterrupted use of Delicious.
Keep your Delicious account and all your bookmarks.
Enjoy the same look and feel of Delicious today plus future product innovations.
What happens if you do not transfer your bookmarks
Delicious in its current form will be available until approximately July 2011.
After that, you will no longer be able to use your existing Delicious account and will not have access to your existing bookmarks or account information.
I do agree with one thing the GigaOM article stated – Delicious might not fully know how people use the service. If they don’t fix the problems quickly, they are going to lose users to StumbleUpon and Reddit. But is it about fixing problems, or educating the users with the new features?
What I Really Like about the Redesign – Stacks
new delicious bookmark tool with Stacks
This is actually a really nice addition to Delicious. It lets you have a visual list of your bookmarks, rather than just links. I have options to view in list or grid mode. I can even see in video mode – which my video show can be on the top of the list. If I create a stack for each show, it becomes a new set of show notes with a visual view.
Request – Bring Back the Chrome Extension QUICK
Right now they want you to drag a link to your bookmarks toolbar. Only problem is I don’t have my bookmarks showing (The hotkey to bring up the bookmark bar is “Shift-CTRL B”). I might get used to using it that way, but if there is an easier way for me to catalog my bookmarks, I will.
With a little learning, I think I will really enjoy the new Delicious site. It’s too soon to tell, but it could also become a great reference.
If you play fantasy football, and many people do, then there is a fairly good chance that you use Yahoo to manage your league. Yahoo Sports has been a great resource for news for a number of years, and their fantasy league software has been the best for quite some time, topping even NFL.com.
A lot of people may not know, though, that Yahoo also has an incredibly good mobile app for fantasy football. It’s available for free in the Android Market. Just use your Yahoo log-in to set it up and you are off and running. Logging in will only have to be done once at set-up. After that the app opens to your homescreen automatically.
Once you are up and running, you can check your current score under “matchup”, which also shows individual players and how they are performing.
You can check all of the scores from around your league.
Click on a player to get more in-depth information.
You can even check the current standings in your league.
There’s a lot you can do with this app. It’s a must for any armchair coach to check their team’s progress and manage, or micro-manage, their roster. You can get Yahoo Fantasy football ’11 free from the Android Market. Good luck this season!
If you use Google groups, you might have noticed the switch to the new version. It is a little more colorful, using html5 and integrating into the other Google properties.
Google Groups Interface
Google Groups is Google’s answer to message boards. Just like with Yahoo! groups, you can create a new group and invite friends to it. They can then read the messages, or interact (depending on how you have the group set up). For example, Todd uses groups to message subscribers of Geek News Central podcast.
Switching is not that difficult. Just choose to use the new Google Groups interface, then (when comfortable) select the button on top called “Switch to the new Google Groups”.
It’s got an email feel to this new version. The left pane is the groups you are in. When you select a group, the list of messages show up on the right. At the top, you are asked to adjust your profile – either update your name or attach this group to your Google profile. Then you can message away!
Does it change the email version?
So you don’t go to this interface. You end up emailling to [whatever]@googlegroups.com. You get emails and respond that way.
So far, nothing has changed there. You can still email to google groups and get messages either when they come out, on a daily digest or never.
It’s another chapter in the failing Yahoo! book. Yesterday, Carol Bartz – then CEO of Yahoo! got an ceremonious firing from the board. Now, with the dust settling, and Jerry Yang saying the company is still not for sale, where does the now-less diminished company go from here?
Rebuilding Phase – a Name Change, perhaps?
I get told time and again – If you want a fresh start, infuse with a new name. Yahoo! is pretty much a name dragged in the mud. Yahoo! represents the internet from 1999. It’s 2011 – Time to get with the times. Put away the preppy clothes, the teased hair and go with something a little more modern.
A new name could bring confidence back in the company and the customers. A fresh logo that means “The future of computing is here”. Then, of course, you will have to back that statement up…
Fire the Board of Directors? Including Jerry Yang.
Jerry Yang says "Yahoo is not for Sale"
Om Malik said it best – Fire the Board. If you’re gonna shake up things, do it right. The board has been flailing since the Microhoo! days. Get a new cast to make decisions and get things done. Om has a great list of who should be on this board.
I am going to take it one step further. Jerry needs to step back even more. The new board has to have free-thinkers with no pressure from Yang. They have to take a major left-turn to keep their businesses satisfied.
Get Back in the Game
During Bartz’ 2 year CEO run, a lot of programs were shut down or sold. Whatever is left should also get some type of a face-lift. Collect the patents and figure out a new plan.
Yahoo might even want to start talks with Facebook. Put a new presence in this social network (since they’ve pretty much destroyed all their social network opportunities). Since they also have a partnership with Microsoft, this might be a really nice fit overall.
Open Up to Everyone
Google does this so well (ok, maybe not with YouTube, but everything else) – Open up to the community. Ask what you want. It worked with Linus Torvolds in creating Linux. Take the information and create something around that.
With items like business email, you cannot do that, but with consumer products like search and home page, open it up and let the consumer feel they have a hand in sculpting.
There has to be 3 items that people are clambering for in the last few years that could be easily integrated. Show the people that you are listening to them.
These are just a few ideas. In thinking of it more, the name change most likely be the best move. After all – if you think Yahoo!, what do you think of? A website that is the future, or a company that represents the past?
It’s another Monday and seems to be another day of inbox Spam. However, I’ve noticed recently how more and more spam groups are being created on Yahoo! and joining me. They basically say the same thing:
I’ve added you to my akljsdfklj group. a free Yahoo! Group to send and receive group messages.
Description: asdflkhasdf
To gain access, click the link…
This is another reason that Yahoo! just doesn’t care about their product. I use Google Groups all the time and don’t get any spam messages like this. Yet, every week I am removing stupid posts like in the image.
Where is the confirmation? I really have to click on a link and tell them this group is spam? Why not have some protocols in place to avoid me getting annoyed like this?
Here are some ideas that anyone running a group website could implement:
1. Multiple fields on form
Make them fill out more information than your name and small description. Make them enter in some contact information. Require a description field to be 20 words or more (not just characters). Have an algorithm determine if the description is jibberish or actually says something.
2. CAPTCHA
It’s annoying, but in a way, it’s meant to be annoying. That way, you know someone is human. Yahoo! does have some CAPTCHA algorithms that they could use in this group. It also kills the bots attempts to register groups.
3. Confirmation
Email confirmation means they have to register an email address first. That might also stop some bots from creating groups.
These are not revolutionary ideas. They have been used before and can be used again. The more we can stop spammers and bots, the less phishing scams and malware can be created. When that happens, people and companies save millions of dollars.
So Yahoo! – If you’re just going to let it continue, then why not shut down YahooGroups and get out of the business. It’s what you’re doing anyway…
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Yahoo announced today that they are enhancing their image search. It has a new tiled interface, a “latest” tab for trending results, a “galleries” tab, and Facebook integration that displays pictures from your friends with your results. The biggest change is, perhaps, the way clicked images are displayed. According to the Yahoo announcement:
“By clicking on any image on the search results page, the image will appear on a fresh page allowing users to browse effortlessly through full-size images with a simple click on the desktop browser.”
The new tiled interface renders all images in equal size, which I actually like better than Google’s “mismatched” look. Like Google and Bing, Yahoo enlarges an image if you hover your mouse over it.
Yahoo is also claiming that more improvements are on the way. These changes are worth checking out because I think this may be the cleanest, prettiest image search of any of the big three search engines. Of course, the bottom line is the results your query gets, and that remains to be seen. You can test it out at images.yahoo.com.
It’s another Monday and seems to be another day of inbox 
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