Yahoo! kicked off Open Hack 2008 today at its headquarters in Sunnyvale. The company has already demonstrated new components of its “open strategy”. The below video is a teaser for the event.
Yahoo! is opening its sites up to third-party applications in an effort to keep users from leaving its web properties. I’m thinking that this is a concept similar to what Google is already doing with Google Gadgets and iGoogle, but it sounds like third party apps will be available across a wider range of Yahoo!-owned sites.
“Like Facebook with its widget platform, Yahoo wants people to do as much as they can without leaving its site,” says Vasanth Sridharan at Silicon Alley Insider. “That is, after all, the point of a portal, and if Yahoo needs to offer some screen real estate to other companies to keep users happy — and keep them coming back to Yahoo — it’s probably worth it.”
Yahoo! showed off an example using a Netflix widget that would let users browse the site, check their queue, etc. without leaving Yahoo!. There is already a similar Google Gadget by the way.
It is important to note that not just anybody will be able to create apps for Yahoo!. The company will control who is allowed to do so as to avoid any security problems such as the recently surfaced “facebot” issue on Facebook. That should make Yahoo! users at least feel safe, not having to worry about their personal data being in jeopardy as a result of Yahoo!’s wanting to keep them around.
It will be interesting to see who all gets on board with Yahoo! handing over their own functionality to the comfort of Yahoo!’s sites. If nothing else, it should provide a good branding tool for the third-parties.
