big company hacks at yahoo!

Big Company Hacks at Yahoo!

Chad Dickerson

Head of Yahoo! Developer Network

[email protected]

March 28, 2007

Innovating from inside out

http://developer.yahoo.com/

What’s coming up

Yahoo! Developer Network

The origins of Hack Day at Yahoo: innovating fromthe inside

Extending the successful formula inside out

Hacking cultural “software” and facilities “hardware”

Fun and inspiring surprises


About the Yahoo! DeveloperNetwork

The central source for ISVs, partners, and developersto leverage the Yahoo! platform in their ownapplications

The Yahoo! platform consists of web services andSDKs that allow developers to build software andservices that leverage Yahoo’s: platform excellence

highly-scalable infrastructure

leadership position in social media


Yahoo! Developer Network offerings

Communications Yahoo! Messenger SDK

Social Media Flickr API

Yahoo! Answers API

Core web infrastructure Yahoo! User Interface Libraries

Browser-based authentication (BBAuth)

Content and RSS feeds Weather, Traffic, Finance, HotJobs

http://developer.yahoo.com/rss/

Developer Centers .NET, PHP, JavaScript, Flash, Python, Ruby

Applications Gallery: http://gallery.yahoo.com/

Hack Day at Yahoo!

Innovating from the inside


What is a hacker?§ A person who enjoys exploring the details of

programmable systems and how to stretchtheir capabilities, as opposed to most users,who prefer to learn only the minimumnecessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users'Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A personwho delights in having an intimateunderstanding of the internal workings of asystem, computers and computer networksin particular.

§ A person capable of appreciating hack value.

§ An expert or enthusiast of any kind. Onemight be an astronomy hacker, for example.

§ One who enjoys the intellectual challenge ofcreatively overcoming or circumventinglimitations.


Key principles behind Hack Day

Every good work of software starts by scratching adeveloper's personal itch.

-- Eric Raymond, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”

Source: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/

Don’t bullshit, just play. -- Wynton Marsalis

It’s more fun to compute.

--Kraftwerk, Computer World(1981)


Hack Day: the rules Build something in 24 hours

(NO POWERPOINTS!)

Present it to everyone at theend of the day in 90 seconds

No prior review of projects --anything goes!

That’s it.

Hundreds of prototypes built


Rob McCool on (internal) Hack Day

In others' hacks I see not products, not teams, notcommittees, but people. I can see my peers shine inevery way. Somebody's name is always on whateverthey did. And I can see what gets them excited. . . .small teams doing what they love and purely expressingthemselves in art, paying attention to the details..

Hack Day means I can build a team based on sharedinterests and common goals, and work with greatpeople I might not otherwise know.

Hack is a true bazaar, where products, ideas, andtweaks are not dictated from above but emerge frombelow and survive purely on their possibilities. Nocathedrals here. It's a wonderful bazaar of dreamersshowing their ideas made real.


Hack Day: Pure innovation

Yahoo! Hack Day…helped meremember why so many of us areexcited about what’s happening onthe web today. After you peel awayall of the extraneous layers, thecore of innovation is five or sixpeople building something theythink is cool.

Mike Arrington, Techcrunch

“Yahoo! Hack Day: Pure Innovation”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/06/18/yahoo-hack-day-pure-innovation/

Hack Day at Yahoo!

Opening it up to the world with theYahoo! Developer Network


Why we wanted to do Open Hack Day

• Build more engaged communityaround Y! Developer Network

• Share the spirit of internal hackdays

• Create excitement about Yahoo’sAPIs and developer platform bylaunching offerings in a festivalenvironment

• Leverage the capabilities and scaleof Yahoo! to deliver uniquelycompelling event

• We had been opening Yahoo! APIs -why not open Yahoo! itself?

• Show people how cool Yahoo! is byinviting them to Yahoo!


Hack Day cycle of innovation

HackersinsideYahoo! openup APIs forinternal HackDay projects

Yahoos create newproducts to test APIs

Battle-testedAPIs providedto outsidedevelopers viaYDN to powertheir ownapplications

Open Hack Day brings outsidedevelopers together with

Yahoo! developers to workwith YDN APIs and suggest

others

Hack Day at Yahoo!

Extending the successful formula from inside out


Simple event structure Friday: talks by industry-

leading Yahoos

YUI libraries

Yahoo! Mail Web Service

Flickr API

PHP5

21 sessions in all

Evening: kickoff party withmusic (Beck), food, and beer

Hacking all night

Demos of hacks on Saturdayafternoon


New developer offerings

Browser-Based Authentication (BBAuth)

http://developer.yahoo.com/auth/

Yahoo! Photos API

http://developer.yahoo.com/photos/

Yahoo! Mail Web Service (previewrelease)

.NET Developer Center

http://developer.yahoo.com/dotnet/


Developers helping developers

Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid, http://flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/256942465/

What I loved about the event - and Yahoo! - was theaccessibility and sense of fun. Even though I was ajudge, inspired by the Friday sessions I stayed up tillthe wee hours with the other programmers puttingtogether a simple photo/bookmark blogging toolusing the Flickr and del.icio.us API's. At one point -well after 2 AM - one of the Flickr developers walkeddown the hallway and stopped to answer questionsand help out the folks sitting next to me. OtherYahoo's did a late-night Red Bull run for the guesthackers. I couldn't help to think how amazing it wasfor Joe Coder to have that kind of access.

Gina Trapani, Lifehackerhttp://www.lifehacker.com/software/yahoo/special-report-yahoo-open-hack-day-06-204584.php


Beck: the hacker musician

“For me it's more about giving themusic legs, giving people new waysto experience it. There are so manyways to integrate technology intomusic; I can't wait to see how theopportunities end up being put touse.

We did a remix project on a Web sitea few years back where we put up thetracks to a song and let people maketheir own versions. There wassomething really inspiring about thevariety and quality of the music thatpeople gave back.”

Beck in Wired (September 2006)

“The Infinite Album”

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/beck.html

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/yodelanecdotal/256157471/

http://flickr.com/photos/maidelba/258334213/


Invitation process

Open “request for invite”for only 400 slots (no fee)

Simple criterion: will you be building

something using at leastone Yahoo! API?

Geographic diversity --not just the usual SiliconValley crowd

It’s ALL about the people!


Rapid-fire demos(never pre-screened, and NO POWERPOINTS)

Hacking your companiescultural “software”


I’m in ur company hackin ur brand

It’s hard to really pull something like thatoff without coming across as cheesy orcontrived, yet it seems that Yahoo! hiton all cylinders and made it work. Hatsoff to Yahoo! for building buzz in thetechnical community the right way. Kevin Briody,

http://seattleduck.com/?p=918


Pre-event publicity No press releases, no mailings,

no traditional marketing, just:

Techcrunch http://www.techcrunch.com/20

06/08/25/announcing-yahoo-open-developer-hack-day/

Hackday.org http://www.hackday.org/

Upcoming.org http://upcoming.org/event/101

629

Yahoo! bloggers


Competitors? OK!

The fact that Yahoo embraced engineers from startups and design shopsthroughout the ecosystem is indicative of the sort of coopetition that is goingon around the web these days. Big organizations like Yahoo, Google andAmazon are making significant pieces of their infrastructure available to thirdparties for development of new applications. As a result, those bigorganizations are able to inject their DNA broadly into applications throughoutthe web. And, by and large, both parties are benefitted by the relationship.

David Hornik, http://www.ventureblog.com/articles/indiv/2006/001258.html

Attendees also included staff from:

Microsoft, Google, eBay, AOL, Adobe


Strong response from attendeesAs I set down these reflections I find my inner cynic--who isso rarely quieted--utterly without remark. Hack Day is oneof those things that just seemed right. . . It's been a longtime since I've had so much fun at a geek event as I did thisweekend at Hack Day --perhaps never.Lori P. Cleary, http://www.apifinder.com/APIFinder/Article/29278

Yahoo! Hack Day was so worth the trip. The weekend couldnot have gone any better. I still can't believe that the folksat Yahoo Developer Relations were able to pull this off. Ihonestly never expected the event to be this good, or thismuch fun.

Bottom line, I had a blast, Beck was awesome, I builtsomething useful with Yahoo stuff, and I have a muchhigher opinion of Yahoo and their technology than I didbefore the weekend started.Jonathan Nolen, http://www.jnolen.org/blog/2006/10/after_yahoo_hac.html

It was certainly one of the best developer events I’ve everattended.Ben Curren, http://www.jotthought.com/articles/2006/10/05/my-weekend-at-yahoo-hackday

Something special happened at Yahoo this week, and I wasvery lucky to be part of it.Mike Arrington, http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/01/all-women-team-takes-yahoo-hack-day-top-prize/


What our “competitors” said

This event was absolutely beyond any of my expectations. To any of youYahoo folk reading: Thanks for an incredible event.Jordan Sissel (Google employee)

http://www.semicomplete.com/blog/geekery/yahoo-hackday-06-part1.html

Many people and organizations have a hard time saying good things abouttheir competitors, but I have no problem in saying that Yahoo’s OpenHackDay06 was quite cool and life changing.Kristopher Tate (Zooomr, Flickr competitor)

http://blog.zooomr.com/2006/10/01/part-1-of-2-yahoos-hackday06-was-quite-cool/

I just wanted to make sure that I told Yahoo! congrats. Any time you see thislevel of enthusiasm, it was clearly a very cool event, and it sounds like theattendees had a really good time.

Matt Cutts (Google)

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/kudos-on-open-hack-day/

Overclocking your facilities“hardware”


Crank up the wireless

The first thing worthy ofmention was the wifi; it wasunbelievably good. Yahoomanaged to provide accessfor three hundred of themost internet-addictedpeople on the planet withouta hiccup. . . The wholeweekend I had solid, fast netaccess everywhere I went.

Jonathan Nolen

http://www.jnolen.org/blog/2006/10/after_yahoo_hac.html

A gigabit link to the‘net for 400 people

Surprises

How inspiring and just plain funny thingshappen when you leave room for them


The hacks

Blogging in motion

• Purse

• Pedometer

• Cell phone

• Flickr API•http://www.blogginginmotion.com/

ybox

“Simple, friendly, text-basedwidget/channels give quicksnapshots of personalized infodownloaded live from thenet.”http://www.uncommonprojects.com/ybox/


Beck makes fun of Silicon Valley work culture

In the live presentation, a video clip was shown here.

Watch the video here:http://ycorpblog.com/2006/09/30/the-hackers-are-here/

The clip shown here was from 0:53-1:36


Commentary on Internet culture

Note: if you are easily offended, step away! (but it’s on our official company blog!)

http://yodel.yahoo.com/2006/09/30/the-hackers-are-here/

In the live presentation, a video clip was shown here.

Watch the video here:http://ycorpblog.com/2006/09/30/the-hackers-are-here/

The clip shown here was from 1:55-2:31


More of everything than we expected

50+ demos, lots offeedback on APIS

400 hackers

4000+ flickr photos

120+ blog posts

1 national camera crew

4 local camera crews

20+ original news articles

32 press attendees

50 broadcast hits


Great feedbackYahoo! is the s***. Seriously, where else can youget the downlow on PHP from the guy whowrote it, sit next to the person who started Flickras you learn how to hack the Flickr API, and get atutorial on the Yahoo UI platform library from thepeople who designed them and then rock out toa private Beck concert, replete with a live puppetshow? Punk. Rock.

This was a great idea from start to finish. Yahoo!gets lots of smart engineers playing around withtheir tools and services, possibly adds a few ofthem to their payroll, and spreads tremendousgood will among the developer community.Attending engineers and researchers, in turn, gettreated to a series of enlightening talks by theleading minds in the industry, sees the internalworkings of a cutting-edge company, and get tonetwork with like-minded people.

Brooke Maury

http://www.brookemaury.org/2006/09/30/yahoo-is-punk-rock/

One of the most difficulthacks: getting the local newsguy to understand the term

“hacker”


Giving feedback to the Yahoo! DeveloperNetwork

Developer community http://developer.yahoo.com/community/

Suggestion box http://developer.yahoo.com/community/suggest.html

Come to our next Hack Day! Stay tuned!


Thank you

Contact:

[email protected]

Yahoo! Developer Network:http://developer.yahoo.com/

(pssst. . . we’re hiring: [email protected])


Photo credits

Credits http://flickr.com/photos/freshelectrons/257973192/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/maidelba/255898974/

All other photos not credited within slides are byYodel Anecdotal (i.e. Yahoo!) or me

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