HACKING FOR INNOVATION Saurabh Sahni YDN Product Guy, Hacker, Evangelist Twitter: @saurabhsahni

WHAT IS A HACK?

An innovative solution to a real world problem; quick and dirty workaround, yet effective.

Hacking is nothing new

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However, today we are looking for software

hacks

Let’s see some examples!

HACKDAY: SIMPLE RULES

•  Take something from idea to prototype in a day •  Demo it at the end of day, in three minutes or

less

The question is though: where do I start?

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Find a problem that needs solving and then have a go

at solving it!

CHALLENGES

1.  Campaign creative developers and designers !  Unique & engaging advertising/brand experience

2. Web & Mobile developers and designers !  Solve a digital media problem

How to start building it?

To build a typical web hack you need data,

access and an interface

The web has lot of data around

ProgrammableWeb.Com – 3517 APIs

http://developer.yahoo.com

http://developer.yahoo.com/everything.html

To access the data easily you can use YQL

YQL turns the internet into a database.

YQL LETS YOU FILTER, COMBINE, TWEAK DATA ACROSS HUNDREDS OF WEB SERVICES.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console

How will you build a system to calculate

distance between two places?

Use Vincenty's formulae

Or use YQL

Select miles FROM geo.distance where

place1=“San Francisco” AND place2=“New York”

There’s also Yahoo! Pipes to do this visually

http://pipes.yahoo.com/

Data however is not enough.

You also need working interfaces

Technologies are easy: HTML CSS

Javascript

Making it work on all browsers and OS is

tricky

So, we have YUI!

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/builder/

You do not want to write multiple versions of same app for different devices

So, we open sourced

http://developer.yahoo.com/cocktails/mojito/

We have the what, the how, now about the where!

http://developer.yahoo.com/geo

Placemaker helps you find locations in content

Mapping News

http://icant.co.uk/geomaker/

Yahoo! has also opened up Search via BOSS

BOSS is Build Your Own Search Service

http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/

BOSS allows you to do web, news, images

and blog search

The easiest way to start with BOSS is to use the

YQL console

http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console

select * from boss.search where q=“New York” and ck=“!” and secret=“!”

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Get a FREE consumer key and secret from

http://hackyourworld.org/hacku/

You can do much more with BOSS

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And our other APIs & tools

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Presenting your hack

DO NOT SHOW US SLIDES ABOUT YOUR HACK

Powerpoint = Fail!

HAVE A PLAN-B

Record screencast Do not depend on internet Keep your stuff ready in browser

WHAT ARE JUDGE LOOKING FOR

•  Creativity •  Working Prototype •  Built during the hackday •  Solves a real problem •  Great User Experience •  Uses data or technology in a unique and

interesting way

AND ONCE YOU ARE DONE

Keep your hack live Show other WPP hackers what you have done Stay in touch with @ydn

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2. A good hack doesn’t need to be a big thing

HACK RESOURCES

http://developer.yahoo.com http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console http://www.github.com http://hackyourworld.org/ http://isithackday.com/hackday-toolbox/ http://talks.php.net/show/hacku/ http://www.slideshare.net/cheilmann

http://twitter.com/saurabhsahni

http://github.com/saurabhsahni

http://slideshare.net/saurabhsahni

http://www.saurabhsahni.com

THANKS!