How to do more, surf less

Posted June 5th, 2009 at 8:01 am by Tapan Bhat, Integrated Consumer Experiences

 8 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

Did you know people in the U.S. visit an average of 85 sites per month? That just sounds exhausting. So we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we can ease the pain of site-hopping to help you do more things at once.

This week, you’ll find a number of new third-party “apps” and “widgets” on Yahoo! Mail, My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Connected TV and Zimbra email to give you quicker access to the things you do online every day – whether planning your dinner menu, sharing photos with friends, or looking for YouTube videos. Below are screenshots and more info on some that we think are especially handy.

Make the Most of Your Inbox
Back in December, we started testing Yahoo! Mail apps that let you do all kinds of new things from your inbox. Today we’re introducing more great options, including:

• PayPal: request or send money securely
• Picnik: edit photos and share photo collages
• Zumo Drive: email files as large as 100MB for free

These apps are only available to a limited number of people during our beta period. Read more about the new Yahoo! Mail apps introduced today, and if you’d like to try it out, click here and enter your Yahoo! ID.

Personalized Productivity on My Yahoo!
We opened up My Yahoo! in December to tap into innovation from third party developers across the Web and give you even more choice for your personalized start page. Some of the new My Yahoo! apps available today include:

• Mint.com: manage your finances, set budgets and get money-saving tips
• Food & Wine Pairing: find recipes, menus, wine reviews and recommended pairings
• Green Lifestyle: grow your green knowledge and help benefit the environment
• WordPress: post to your blog and moderate your recent comments

To add these and other apps to your page, click on any of the links above or go to “Add Content” and look for the “Open Apps” category in the My Yahoo! gallery. These apps are built on the Yahoo! Application Platform, and you can read more about them and many others on the Yahoo! Developer Network blog.

Do More on Your TV
Back in March, we helped raise your TV’s IQ with widgets that can deliver the best of the Internet to your living room. In addition to your favorite Web sites like Flickr, Twitter, USA Today Sports, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Weather, Internet-enabled TVs from Samsung and LG Electronics (coming soon from Sony and VIZIO) now feature more best-of-the-web Yahoo! TV widgets, including:

• YouTube: search and view YouTube’s massive library of video content on your TV screen
• Showtime: find information, schedules, interviews and short clips from popular Showtime offerings
• eBay (coming soon): get real-time updates, place bids, and monitor your favorite items on eBay

Zimlets Anyone?
Even Yahoo!’s Zimbra (our advanced open-source email & collaboration software) is getting into the mix, introducing a handful of new Zimlets (which integrate new features in email, similar to the Yahoo! Mail applications). Automatically save emails as documents, drop sticky notes on messages, and handle expense reports with one click. More information can be found on the Zimbra blog.

By making Yahoo! more open, we’re able to bring all that is good and useful on the Web even closer to your fingertips. We’re constantly adding new apps, so stay tuned for more.

Tapan Bhat
SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, Yahoo!

Tagged: connected tv, my yahoo!, yahoo! mail, yahoo! open strategy, zimbra

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8 Comments Add your own

=bg= | June 5th, 2009 at 2:04 pm

click HERE and enter your Yahoo! ID……

Sorry, the page you requested was not found.

Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you’re having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! home page or look through a list of Yahoo!’s online services. Also, you may find what you’re looking for if you try searching below.

kesa2ran | June 10th, 2009 at 4:38 am

How does it compare to google wave where the intention is similar getting everything at one place ?

Zimbra sounds complex .. anything simple ?

I think the API documentation of yahoo at Yahoo developer site needs to be more user/newuser friendly .

I always loved yahoo when compared to google but somehow the API’s are quite complex via yahoo :(

Andy | June 11th, 2009 at 8:29 am

All this new stuff makes we wonder…when is the next release of Yahoo Widget Engine? It’s been quite a while since the last release.

am67 | June 18th, 2009 at 8:48 am

Is the availability of the TV Widgets limited by country? I live in Italy and in the Widget Gallery just a limited number of widgets appear… definitely not the YouTube one.

Perception System - Taufik | June 19th, 2009 at 5:24 am

This one is the best blog . Thanks to Tapan for posting.

David Wood | June 19th, 2009 at 9:55 am

I have a samsung TV with yahoo widgets in the United Kingdom but we don’t have the YouTube or Showtime widgets. We just have weather, flickr and a few others. Do you have any idea when the YouTube widget will be released in the UK?

Professional Web Development compayn | January 20th, 2010 at 5:26 am

Really nice stuff.. keep writting

Magento Experts | January 20th, 2010 at 5:26 am

Very impressive stuff.. thanks for sharing