Victor runs Yahoo!’s accessibility program. He helps make it easy for people with all kinds of disabilities to use our sites. When I first met Victor, I had the same naïve reaction most people have – dumbfounded by how he could crank open his laptop and be fully self-sufficient reading email and surfing the web. That’s because I was clueless about all the remarkable ways that people with disabilities use technology.

Victor’s made it his mission to educate our designers and engineers, helping change their assumptions that accessibility somehow requires sacrifice or compromise. On the contrary, Victor argues that accessible design is better for everyone. Just as curb-cuts were designed for wheelchairs, they’re also a great convenience for strollers, luggage and shopping carts, right?

But driving the point home sometimes means making someone walk a mile in his moccasins. Enter the Yahoo! Accessibility Lab, which has been toured by more than 75 product teams to date. It’s filled with a wide array of assistive technologies – screen readers, onscreen keyboards, interactive Braille displays, etc. When Yahoos arrive, they’re told they’ve just had a stroke and can’t type with their fingers. They’re given a rubber ball and asked to type their name. Um… Next, they’re fully paralyzed. “OK, try to send an email.” Uh… After they’re introduced to the technology solutions, they watch videos of disabled people in action.

All this leaves developers making accessibility a goal before they write their first line of code. It’s why anybody can access rich features and tools on products like Yahoo! Sports, My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone. It’s why third-party websites that are inaccessible in their own right are now entirely accessible via the new “favorites” area on the Yahoo! Homepage. Victor has helped Yahoo! make enormous strides since joining us four years ago, but there’s still more to come.

We spent some time following Victor with a video camera to not only understand his work, but to appreciate his daily experience. Commuting by train. Playing guitar. Making lunch with his wife Karo Caran, a fellow student from the Overbrook School for the Blind. We watched as sighted people had their first awkward interactions with him. He laughs when he describes how often people raise their hands when he asks questions during his new hire orientation briefings. Well-meaning commuters sometimes escort him to the wheelchair zone on the train platform. It took me a while to realize he’s not offended by questions like “Did you see my email?”

Here’s Victor’s video profile:

Spend any amount of time with Victor and you realize that his blindness doesn’t really make him all that different from anyone else – except that his computer talks to him. Really, really fast.

Read more:

• Victor’s post about screenreaders
• Victor’s post about the launch of our Accessibility Lab in Bangalore
• An interview with Victor about his life and music

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Video credits: producer, Nicki Dugan; cinematographer, Brad Williams; director/editor, Ricky Montalvo
Photo by gingervitis

• Faces of the Flickrverse: Tagging has always been the fun part of Flickr, making it a cinch to find photos of anything from fungus to flugelhorns. This week, People in Photos made its debut, letting you add people to your photos, find photos of people you know, and manage which photos you’re in. If you’re tagged, you’ll get notified in your activity stream. If that sounds at all creepy to you, never fear – you’ve got plenty of privacy power. Opt out, opt in. More on the Flickr blog.
• Teach your phone to yodel: Sure, your mobile can probably mimic the sound of crickets, a dog bark, a vintage telephone, or sonar. But can it yodel? Now it can. In support of our Yodel Studio promotion, which seeks the world’s best new yodelers with a chance to be featured on our homepage and in our global marketing campaign, we’ve cooked up yodeling ringtones. And not just your government issue yodel. We’re talking hip-hop, a cappella, R&B, reggae, and bluegrass yodels. Download them here or text YODEL to 49737 in the US, 56263 in India, and 83338 in the UK. Oh, and don’t forget to submit your yodel and/or vote for your favorites. The deadline is November 8th.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

That was easy, right? Well, that’s thanks to ad agency creatives who turned simple brand messages into iconic household catchphrases. They make it look easy, but it’s not. And it can be even tougher when creating online advertising because there’s more to it than simply putting an ad on TV. We know all about that and are working with our advertisers to foster big, memorable ideas online.

Here’s a digital short that our creatives produced to pay homage to all those creatives out there:

For the full story behind this video, head over to our new Yahoo! Advertising blog.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

We decided to catch up with our chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele, to get some skinny on the effort. We asked her about the campaign’s genesis, the significance of the “It’s Y!ou” messaging, why we decided to launch a campaign now, why we went with a vignette approach in the campaign video, her favorite scenes, and why we introduced a new form of the Yahoo! yodel at the end of the new spot. Here’s the Q&A:

And we’re trying something new here — this is the first in a series that we’re dubbing Yahoo! Yodelcasts. We’ll interview Yahoos from all walks of life, share tips and advice, and take you behind the scenes. We’re all ears if there’s something you’re particularly interested in hearing about.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Crowds of starstruck pedestrians formed around a recording studio that we erected overnight in Times Square as yodels echoed through the canyons of the city. We invited anyone and everyone to come inside and give us their best interpretation of the Yahoo! yodel. What was at stake? The potential fame and bragging rights of having their yodel featured on the Yahoo! Homepage and in our new advertising campaign.

We camped out on Military Island for 12 hours in a brick building that included a dressing room with costume gear, a rehearsal room with gold records on the wall, and a state-of-the-art recording studio. Celebrities were on hand to mentor yodelers — Jewel, Pete Wentz, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Jackson, and Rob Cavallo, chief creative officer of Warner Music Group and one of the world’s most highly acclaimed music producers. (Jewel said her dad was so proud that all those years of coaching her to yodel had finally paid off.) Kimberly Caldwell of American Idol fame was our tireless emcee and we even had America’s Got Talent’s Manuela “The Yodeling Dominatrix” Horn to help rally brave souls. And house band musicians — with many Grammys among them — sat atop the marquee of the Hard Rock Cafe (Hollywood Squares-style), ready to give a live riff for each yodeler. We heard rap yodels, bluegrass yodels, punk yodels, funk yodels, hip hop yodels, the list goes on. We even had two Cirque du Soleil performers stop by for a rendition. And they were all projected on the Jumbotron for the crowd to enjoy (or, at least, be amused by).

The last time we sought the best new Yahoo! yodeler, back in 2003, we ended up launching the singing career of a 9-year-old girl named Taylor Ware. Yesterday, one lucky performer (pictured above) — a foot messenger whose boss told her she could come perform before she delivered her last package of the day — caught the eye of Pete Wentz and Rob Cavallo, who spent extra time coaching her and left with her MySpace info and email address. Remember the name Chanese Elife, people — she might have a bright future ahead!

We also held events in London and Mumbai because, you know, yodeling knows no geographic bounds. The top winners for each country will be crowned on November 15th, based on which videos receive the most views. So head over to the gallery and check out the contenders. You’ll help them find an audience of more than 500 million people.

For more on the event, read Lyndsey Parker’s Yahoo! Music blog posts, browse photos in our Flickr photostream (slideshow below), and watch video highlights from our NY, London, and Mumbai events:

Ya-hooooo!

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

First, a quick review. We have hosted Open Hack Days since 2006 to foster collaboration and innovation within the developer community. This was our ninth event, preceded by shindigs at our California headquarters as well as in Taiwan, London, Bangalore, and São Paulo. We provide the hands-on workshops, tech talks, food, beer, Red Bull, and various hackery diversions, and developers stay up all night long to deliver creative mashups that they demo before a panel of judges.

About 300 developers attended our inaugural NYC event (sporting a greater proportion of blazers and ties than we’re used to seeing), which kicked off Friday morning with a keynote by Clay Shirky, a New York University professor and social media guru (here’s a video interview we grabbed). After a day of workshops and training sessions, developers adjourned to a hacker lounge with a steampunk theme. Victorian bird cages dangled power cables above each hacker table. A bright red wall was hung with gilded portraits of various well-known innovators. A Victorian maiden was hacked with a monitor for a head, displaying the latest tweets with the #openhacknyc tag on her face. Chalk boards featured ornate steampunk-inspired drawings that would have impressed H.G. Wells. And, of course, there was the table of hacker snacks and a beanbag-filled corner dedicated to Guitar Hero.

Before the hacking began, we hosted a geek’s open mic event with Ignite NYC. For two hours, participants had five minutes on stage to talk through 20 slides that automatically rotated after 15 seconds. It was a bit like the everyman’s TED. We heard about Moby Dick written in Japanese Emoji, the violence of the media, how to save journalism, what “open” means, patents, surprisology, benefits of living in colonies at sea, the New York Times Index (yes, it’s still printed on paper), clothing made of scissors and agave leaves, and the tyranny of a flavored chewing-tobacco lover on YouTube. There was even a visit from the Spaceman from Outer Space (who apparently wasn’t a fan of Alien IV).

By Saturday afternoon, about 100 hackers persevered and submitted 40 hacks. Without further ado, our winners:

• Best Overall – InsiderTrade.org: You can sign up for instant alerts about insider trades for the various stocks you follow. It’s live – try it.
• Best Overall, Runner up – TVitter: If you’re a Mystery Science Theater 300 fan, you’ll love this one. The team hacked our Connected TV widget to produce an app that lets people watch TV together and throw out comments that others can see.
• Connected TV (1st place) – Recipe Finder: This app lets you find and display recipes and even includes a countdown timer so you don’t burn your cupcakes while you get engrossed in Glee.
• Connected TV 2nd prize – Fantasy Football Widget: Brings the #1 fantasy sports league to your TV.
• Connected TV 3rd prize – Couch Potato RSS: This app lets you follow your favorite RSS feeds while you’re surfing TV.
• Best UI – Inhabited Web 2.0: Brings a social filter to individual websites by letting you see where people are congregating on a web page – “perhaps next to a great deal, interesting news story, or funny video.”
• Best Mobile – Community Bulletin Boards: This app brings community bulletin boards to your iPhone so you can find, create and add to message boards based on location just like physical bulletin boards that one sometimes finds in parks, on streets, in shops etc.
• Accessibility – Audio Texter: An app that allows blind and visually-impaired people send and receive SMS messages.
• Best Food/Hardware Hack (tie) – The New York Toast: From Team MakerBot, we had a 3D printer that printed news, weather, and photos in peanut butter, jam, and frosting… on toast. News for breakfast.
• Best Food/Hardware Hack (tie) – Delicious Cake: Since Team MakerBot found cake mix in their grocery bag and an extra supply of wire and LEDs, they spawned another team that created a cake that showed sentiment (positive and negative) for del.icio.us URLs. It was not eaten. This team included Diana Eng, overall winner of our very first Open Hack.
• Hack for Good – Power Trends: A platform that helps consumers save on their energy bills and helps energy providers predict load but leveraging social media. It measures energy usage for participating towns, who compete for prizes for being below their power consumption baseline.

Here’s a quick video recap of the event:

For more of that just-like-being-there feeling, you can view our Flickr photoset, other photos from the event, and check out tweets here.

Up next? Taiwan. We’re coming to hack you. This weekend. Get ready.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photos: 1. Hack maestros – Eric and Havi, 2. Winning hackers, 3. Best overall hack – insidertrading.org, 4. Judges, 5. YDN stickers, 6. Peanut butter printing, 7. Steampunked emcees, 8. Winning hackers, 9. Last minute hacking, 10. NYU’s Clay Shirky keynotes, 11. Hacking a nap, 12. Hacker heart, 13. Eli hacks the stickers, 14. Steampunked Twitter display, 15. Hacker lounge, 16. Creating the NY Toast

We kicked things off this morning with a keynote by New York University professor Clay Shirky, whose book “Here Comes Everybody” examines how Web 2.0 is revolutionizing the social order. He tackled the culture of online communities and what motivates people to participate in them. For example, why have more than 3,311 people built out incredible minutiae about Dr. Who on Wikipedia? Why does a guy build the Taj Mahal out of LEGOs and upload photos to a LEGO community site? What happens when a woman who normally blogs about fashion and her iPhone apps decides to post photos of a military coup?

We grabbed a few minutes with Clay after his talk to expand on his themes. Here’s the interview:

Our hackers now have bellies full of hot dogs, nachos, beer, and ice cream bars (nourishing hacker food) and are bedding down for a night of coding. We’ll see the fruits of their labor tomorrow afternoon when they each have 90 seconds to dazzle the judges with their wares. They probably won’t get much sleep, but we hope there will be Obama sandwiches for all.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

The claims are false. Neither Yahoo! nor any Yahoo! representative has met with or communicated with Iranian officials regarding the matters referenced in the article, and Yahoo! has not disclosed user data to the Iranian government. ZDNet has since called the report unreliable, but we’re disappointed we weren’t given a chance to weigh in before the story was published.

You can read more about the situation on our Business & Human Rights Program blog.

UPDATE: ZDNet retracted its story this evening.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Here’s the result:

BTW: The music track, “Hot To Trot,” is from his “Spectacle” EP and is available on iTunes.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Homepage is more apptastic: If you’ve been playing with our new homepage apps, you’ve discovered our gallery of recommended apps. This week, we added more than a dozen new ones, with more to come. You can balance your personal budget with Mint, learn how to pair the right wine with your meal with an app from MyRecipes and Snooth, discover weekly deals at Target, get movie info from Flixster, or manage posts and comments on your WordPress blog — all from the Yahoo! Homepage. And because we’ve opened it up to third-party developers, expect that list to grow. More on the Yahoo! Developer Network blog.
• New Yahoo! Search: Notice anything different about Yahoo! Search? After a month of testing, we’ve rolled out a brand new Yahoo! Search that ups the ante in personal relevance. You’ll see new tools that let you explore related concepts; display only results from popular Yahoo! and third-party sites like Wikipedia, YouTube and IMDB; and narrow results by types of content like people, videos, and discussion forums. We also give you quick access to our Search Scan/SafeSearch tool, to protect you from viruses, spyware and spam, and Search Pad, which lets you take notes during your queries. More on the Yahoo! Search blog.
• Yahoo! Messenger kills bugs dead: The bug hunters on the Messenger team have released new versions of both Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta as well as Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone. In the former, they’ve fixed issues with webcam detection, added messaging to tell you when your friend needs to upgrade versions, offer better handling of unanswered calls, and explain when your Internet connection downgrades you to a voice call. Over on the iPhone, they’ve addressed the mysterious contact list disappearances. Download the upgrade in the iTunes App Store. More here and here on the Yahoo! Messenger blog.
• Zimbra milestone: Ok, what do Zimbra and South Africa have in common? People. Fifty million of them now have paid Zimbra mailboxes, just a bit more than the population of Africa’s most southerly nation That milestone comes amidst the launch of Zimbra Collaboration Suite 6.0, which now lets you more easily sync to your mobile, read and write emails with tabbed views, create presentations without external software, receive read email receipts, choose from among calendar views, and remotely wipe your phone if you lose it, among other features. More over on the Zimbra blog.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Have a look:

The spot debuted online on Yahoo! (you.yahoo.com) as well as on sites like Yahoo! Video, YouTube, Facebook, and Hulu.com. It will also begin airing on all the major U.S. TV networks and top cable channels, including AMC, ESPN, USA, Comedy Central and Bravo. You’ll see it in the UK and India starting October 5, and in other markets in 2010, including Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, and Taiwan.

Whaddaya think?

Stay tuned for behind-the-scenes insights into Anthem’s production…

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Here’s a video that captures just some of their stories:

Some notes on these great characters, by order of appearance:

• Sonia uses the homepage to manage her life… and admits to listening to Launchcast radio on Yahoo! Music when she’s in the shower.
• Dennis first used Yahoo! Search in grade school to look up the pink Power Ranger (he had a big crush).
• Bob lives on Yahoo! Finance and swears it helped him save his retirement funds.
• Evelyn relied on Yahoo! to stay connected to the world when she was in the Air Force, stationed in the desolate Australian outback.
• Bodhi is a California grad student from India who uses Yahoo! Messenger video chat to connect with her parents in India every night.
• Ted and Vicky used Yahoo! Messenger to court each other – much of it long distance. They also ditched their cable when discovering they could meet all their entertainment needs on Yahoo!.
• Erin is a fine art photographer who’s created a huge following on Flickr for her beautiful Polaroid photography (and scored press coverage and several commissions and exhibitions).
• Brandon is addicted to film and relies on Yahoo! Movies on his iPhone for ratings and reviews (and incidentally is one of the youngest patent holders in the US).
• Valerie used a Freecycle group on Yahoo! Groups to outfit her classroom with free stuff (including a clawfoot bathtub the kids read in).
• Larry admits to spending about two hours a day managing his teams on Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.
• Emily loves looking things up on Yahoo! Search, like where dimples come from and why the starling is the most hated bird in the world.
• Thomas gets sucked into Yahoo! News daily, digging that one minute he can read about the elections in Afghanistan and then stumble on something about the depletion of ants in the Amazon rainforest.

Connecting with real people, real users, to hear what they love, hate and need about using our products is what we’re all about. As our new brand campaign stipulates, Yahoo! is about you. All you.

Stay tuned for standalone video profiles of these great voices and more.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

This week, Manhattan will be abuzz with thousands of brand stewards and creative types, coming together to pay tribute to the best in advertising and share visions about what the future brings. And Yahoo! will be there in force – helping marketers understand how to make the most of the online medium.

In honor of the occasion, CEO Carol Bartz and a bevy of senior Yahoo! executives rang the opening bell at NASDAQ this morning. Here’s video to prove it:

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Unleash your inner curator: If you’re a photo nut, it’s easy to get sucked into exploring the more than 3.4 billion photos on Flickr. And if you’ve ever wanted to collect and horde your favorites by theme, have we got a new feature for you. Introducing Flickr Galleries, which gives members a handy way to celebrate the creativity of their fellow photographer. You can curate together up to 18 public photos or videos in one place – Big Ben, blue eyes, snails, cats with thumbs, mannequins, what have you. To get started, just click on the “Add to Gallery” icon on the menu bar. Just five days out of the gate and it’s a very popular feature – you’ve created more than 25,000 galleries to date. More here.
• Out with the old: The Messenger team has news for anyone using Yahoo! Messenger versions 6.0 through 7.5. As of September 30th, we’ll be retiring those oldies. If you’re using anything below 8.0, you’ll find you won’t be able to sign in. That’s the price of progress, right? (We wouldn’t want you to be that guy still using a mobile phone with an antennae.) While Messenger 9.0 and the beta of Messenger 10 are rich in features like video sharing, full-screen video chat, spam protection, and more, we realize people like options. So after September 30th, you can also try Yahoo! Messenger for the Web or the IM built into Yahoo! Mail. More here.
• Celebrate en Español: In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Yahoo! En Español has teamed up with Kodak to invite Latinos – and Latinos at heart – to “Muestra Tu Herencia” (Show Your Heritage). Folks are invited to upload photos of friends and family through October 31st as well as leave comments. For every photo uploaded, Yahoo! and Kodak will donate $4 to the Hispanic College Fund (up to $20,000). And as of October 12th, we’ll unveil a digital photo mosaic of all the submitted photos as a tribute to Hispanic families across the U.S. Muchas gracias!

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• F-F-Fantastic phone apps: For the millions of you with touch-screen phones, you can now download some of Yahoo!’s most popular services. Call them the Three F’s: Finance, Flickr and Fantasy Football (or is that four Fs?). With interactivity reminiscent of their Web-based counterparts, these apps let you access our services on the go from an iPhone, iPod touch or select Blackberry models (including Bold, Tour and 8900 series). For now, Finance and Fantasy Football users can download them in the U.S. and Canada, while the Flickr app is also available in the UK, France, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For a deeper dive, check out our post earlier this week.
• Inviting apps & jumbo files: The new and improved Yahoo! Mail just debuted three new apps that turn your inbox into even more of a productivity hub. Head over to that handy Applications box and you’ll notice new apps from Evite and pingg — two options for sending and managing invitations. They sensibly integrate with tools like Yahoo! Calendar, Yahoo! Address Book and Yahoo! Maps to take the stress out of party-planning (and -going). And the new Attach Large Files app, courtesy of the folks at drop.io, lets you upload and share files up to 100MB. You can also collaborate by commenting on files, leaving a voicemail for more context or dialing in to a conference call for a real-time powwow. Read more here.
• Neighbors helping neighbors: Let’s say that waffle iron you plugged in blew your kitchen fuse and it’s been a blue moon since you last called an electrician. Where do you turn? The best tips are often from the people you bump into every day in your neighborhood. And we’ve just made it easier to get their word-of-mouth recommendations. Yahoo! Neighbors, a new feature on Yahoo! Local, lets you get answers to everyday problems. Use it to find local services or post questions and tips for the community. For a taste, check out this thread from some users in Dallas in search of a driving school.
• New souped-up Messenger for Mac: For all you Mac users, there’s a new beta version of Messenger available for download. Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0 comes with a bunch of new bug fixes to help it run more smoothly. You’ll also get the Messenger Insider window that’s available on Windows versions, giving you a daily snapshot of what’s happening on Yahoo! and around the world. Want to take it for a test drive? Download it here and read more here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

This larger than life greeting welcomed me to work one morning, as I shuffled in with a case of the Mondays. Quite startled, I looked over to our headquarters guard shack and out spilled the purplest, most enthusiastic human being I’d ever seen — waving energetically with a big infectious grin. Did she know me? Who cares – she said I was gorgeous! Suddenly, it felt more like a Friday.

The thing is, she tells everyone they’re gorgeous.

Meet Shewondia Mills, a Yahoo! security guard who has become a veritable campus celebrity since she joined the team less than a year ago. Her iconic personality cracks a smile on everyone’s face — you can’t even help it. Every morning, she douses herself in Yahoo! spirit, which she embodies like no one before her. She is literally purple from head to toe — her fingernails, her eyelids, her eyelashes, her lipstick, her hair, the lenses of her glasses. People walk and drive out of their way to get her signature greeting, which lifts the soul and rescues the brain from its PowerPoint-induced haze.

Shewondia consistently proves that a little extra pride goes a long way. She has collected more “Backyard Bravos” (online awards employees send to fellow Yahoos on our intranet) than anyone else at the company, including Carol Bartz, Jerry Yang, and David Filo. Just today, she snagged second prize in the Guardsmark Security Officer of the Year award, taking home $5,000. And visitors are quite taken with her welcome wagon, including a New York Times reporter who recently came to interview our CEO.

Here’s a video that takes you behind the scenes with Shewondia, giving you a sense of her inimitable style and why her pride so purple.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Look ma, no wires: Those who manage their lives via Yahoo! Calendar and own an iPhone will rejoice – you can now sync the two! Tapping into the CalDAV open standard, we’ve collaborated with Apple to let you bring all your precious deets into your iPhone Calendar. You can also share your calendar with friends and family and likewise see their events on your phone. Nothing to download, no wires — it’s all over the air. That’s mighty George Jetson. More here.
• Tweeting your tunes: The latest version of FoxyTunes is out and it’s all atwitter. FoxyTunes, the toolbar that lets you control tunes from within your browser, now lets you easily tweet about the music you’re listening to. A project started about two years ago, TwittyTunes is officially a new default feature within FoxyTunes. And remember, you have 140 characters, which is enough to tweet, “Listening to a song I love: The Dandy Warhols – The Legend of the Last of the Outlaw Truckers aka the Ballad of Sherif Shorty.” What’s more, you can also share your song via Facebook, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Last.fm, and Yahoo! Status. It’s a musical meetup. More here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Cheapskates rule: There’s nothing like nuked portfolios and pink slips to make couponing de rigueur. This recession has spawned a generation of proud penny pinchers who enjoy the hunt for great bargains, and the refreshed Yahoo! Deals makes that even more sporting fun. In addition to daily deals, weekly electronic circulars, and online coupons from major retailers, you can now find great local bargains with coupons for groceries and neighborhood stores. You can even share your dollar-saving discoveries through social tools like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Delicious. Get your save on. More here.
• Trash talking mayors: Politics and fantasies should rarely mix. But mayors from 11 big football cities are letting their imaginations run wild as they pick their teams for the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football Mayoral Face-Off. From San Francisco to Oakland, Green Bay to Buffalo, mayors are squaring off to see who can assemble the winning team. What’s in it for them? A check for $15,000 to benefit their favorite local sports charity. What’s more, the city with the most votes from football fans scores another $15,000. So go hit the polls now. More here.
• Measure your mojo: If you know how to retweet your @replies with a hashtag, you’re on Twitter. But do you know what kind of Twitter user you are? In celebration of the launch of our new Yahoo! Homepage, we’ve launched Know Your Mojo with a sophisticated pipe thingy that analyzes your account and spits out your social mojo. If you’re a Crowd Pleaser, you’re into hashtags. If you’re a BFF, you’re big into @replies. If you’re a Wall Flower, you seem to have forgotten how to type. We’ll also recommend what websites you should add to your own Yahoo! homepage to help feed your mojo. We’re a Concierge. More here.
• You’re two-faced: Speaking of customizing your Yahoo! Homepage, we’ve developed a Facebook quiz that acknowledges that there’s more than one side to each of us. In our Split Personality quiz, you’ll answer ten multiple-choice questions to determine whether you’re more like Tiger Hilfiger, Galileo Cronkite or Bono Rockefeller (etc.). And then we’ll suggest websites to add to your Yahoo! Homepage that match your dueling passions. What’s your split personality?

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

In honor of our new Yahoo! Homepage, which was designed to be customized to reflect your true personality, we’ve launched a new tool that helps you analyze your social mojo. Just enter your Twitter username and our highly scientific pipe thingy goes to work to determine exactly what kind of Twitter persona you possess. You might be a:

• Headliner – You’re the star of the Twitterverse, have tons of followers, and have retweets the likes of Ashton Kutcher and Perez Hilton
• Crowd Pleaser – You use lots of hashtags and are in on all the hot conversations
• Cheerleader – Retweeting is how you roll
• B.F.F. – Your volume of @replies makes you everybody’s best bud
• Party Animal – With so many followers, you’re the life of the party
• Private Eye – Like any good investigator, you’re following a boatload of people
• Concierge – You live for links and sending people to the best stuff
• Word Whiz – You’re a natural wordsmith and make the most of your 140 characters
• Lone Wolf – You’re more of a low-profile type (some might even accuse you of lurking)
• Name Dropper – You use lots of @names when you tweet
• Matchmaker – You pass along lots of URLs to make sure everyone’s connected
• Wall Flower – You don’t tweet much but you’re still in on the party
• Novelist – You have a lot to say and tweet with a lot of characters to prove it
• Shadow – You follow lots of people like a good shadow would
• Scenester – If there’s a hashtag conversation happening, you’re there
• Tweethead – Your high number of retweets shows you like to spread the good stuff

And once you get your assessment, we suggest a number of related websites that you can add to your very own Yahoo! Homepage to help feed your mojo.

Give it a try — http://yahoo.knowyourmojo.com… and then tweet about it. (And be sure to follow us on Twitter — we’re a Concierge.)

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Photo hunting: There are more than 3 billion photos and videos on Flickr — guaranteeing that you’ll find awesome captures of just about anything. Now it’s easier to wade through that massive library with the new Flickr Search. The search results page has been redesigned with new “view” controls that let you dictate whether you want the thumbnails as small, medium, or detail. There’s also an option to view search results as a slideshow. You can also click on a particular photo to launch a popup preview with more info. And, since Flickr is all about serendipity and discovery, you’ll see links to the groups, photographers, tag clusters, and places that relate to your search. Try this search for polka-dotted poodle. More here.
• Fresh and Delicious: The team over at our favorite social bookmarking site unwrapped some tasty treats this week. Delicious now has new search tools, including the ability to search within a date range and filter by tags. You’ll also find rich content (YouTube videos, Flickr images, Yelp data) right on the search results page. Since we all want to know what everybody’s up to, Delicious has added the “Fresh Bookmarks” tab to let you see the most recently-saved bookmarks that are buzzing on Twitter. And speaking of Twitter, you can now tweet your bookmarks from right within Delicious. Ditto for emailing. More here and over on the Delicious blog.
• More Messenger movies: Baby panda videos. Movie trailers. Tour de France photos. The kind of stuff we love to share. If you have Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, it’s now all that much easier to ping friends with great videos and photos. The team had added support for a slew of sites to Messenger’s inline media player — ranging from Hulu, Facebook, and Vimeo to twitpic and CollegeHumor.com. All that because you told them to. Ask, and ye shall receive. More here.

Finally, a shout-out to reader Dennis Marks for suggesting we ditch the date in our Product Pulse headlines in favor of content clues (made good sense to us!).

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Also, Carol and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hosted a conference call together this morning on our campus to discuss the agreement with media and analysts. You can check out an archive on our investor relations site. And here are a few photos of them both from just after the call.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

If you want to know what all that means, you’ll have to watch this video — now playing on the Yahoo! Homepage, starring just a handful of the many technical talents responsible for our spiffy new homepage.

Fortunately, it’s closed-captioned for the nerd-impaired.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Home sweet home: We’ve remodeled the house but we’re letting you pick out the furniture. The new Yahoo! Homepage is here! And it’s all about you. Load it up with your favorite websites by choosing from one of more than 65 apps or adding a link of your own. Also, your news is now hyper-local and you can also toggle the main news module for more of the big news that matters. And you can take it all with you — PC to mobile sync is coming very soon. If you live in the U.S., you can opt-in today by visiting http://yahoo.com/trynew. Our friends in France, India, and the UK will soon have access to localized versions and we’ll start rolling out to other markets in the next month. Take a tour and read more here.
• Roadtrip photos: If you’re one of the many people who researches travel destinations by checking out online photos, you’ll start packing your suitcase when you see the new travel image refiner on Yahoo! Image Search. You can now take a virtual tour of popular points of interest when you search for a destination. Which Hawaiian isle is right for you? Search for Hawaii and click on the thumbnails for islands like Maui, Oahu, Kauai, and popular spots like Haleakala National Park and Waimea Canyon. Try it with Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Rome, Sydney, New York City, San Francisco, and beyond. More here.
• More mobile Messenger: Attention, iPhone users – the latest Yahoo! Messenger app update is out and it is spiffy. Now you can get notified of a new message even when the app is closed. Make that, even when your iPhone is asleep! You can choose whether you get an alert on your home screen, an alert sound, or a badge featuring the number of messages — or all three, or none. Another new addition – you can now stay signed in for up to two weeks. Again, that’s even when your app is closed. And finally, you can now BUZZ! your friends – one of the most requested features for the iPhone app. Ask and ye shall receive! More here.
• Back to class: Yep, it’ll soon be time to trade flip-flops for Mary Janes – school is right around the corner. But we’re here to ease the pain. Our new Back to School site helps you choose the right backpack, find green school supplies, get safety tips, find ways to cut down your back-to-school budget, and even adjust to a new school. We give you a roster of shopping bargains, like dorm room essentials, MP3 players, and student duds. There’s also a study zone with fun learnings, games, and cool Avatar gear for when the time comes to drop a school bus in your background. And if you’re tired of the same ol’ same ol’, there are great healthy school lunch recipes. In the meantime, make the most of those flip-flops!

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

In the meantime, you might want to check out public radio. Chris Page, our director of climate and energy strategy, who works with the data center team to squeeze more work out of every kilowatt-hour our data centers consume, spoke to the folks at Public Radio International’s “Living on Earth” program for a segment that aired this week. She gives you both a virtual tour of our local Sunnyvale data center and explains how far the industry has come since energy efficiency became a priority. Think facilities that operate more like a Tesla than your mom’s old wood-paneled station wagon (but without the pricetag).

Head over to “Living on Earth” to check out the transcript or listen to the program.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

A group of Yahoos from Taiwan recently banded together to run up the Taipei 101, which weighs in as the world’s tallest skyscraper at 101 stories with 2,046 steps. That’s 508 meters or one third of a mile… straight up. It was part of a masochistic race called the “Taipei 101 Run Up,” which pits teams against each other to see who can reach the top first. The 20 participating teams included major brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, and Bayer.

Sporting purple Yahoo! T-shirts, our team included a few senior Yahoo! executives, including Ari Balogh, our executive vice president of Products and chief technology officer (visiting from California); Rose Tsou, senior vice president of our Asia region; and Charlene Hung, general manager of Yahoo! Taiwan.

So, how’d they do in this ultimate Stairmaster challenge? They placed fifth, just a few spots behind last year’s second place finish (when they lost out to the fire department — the only team you really want passing you). And the fastest Yahoo? That would be Ari, whose addiction to energy bars clearly paid off. He scaled the building’s 101 stories in just 18:26.

Here are some photos from the race and sweet victory:

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Toolbar tricks: Now, every browser comes with a toolbar, so why would you want the new one from Yahoo!? Does yours let you preview your email or content from more than 100 popular sites? Does it give you query suggestions as you search? Does it let you search directly within sites like Flickr or Wikipedia? I didn’t think so. Go download yourself the new Yahoo! Toolbar. It’s all about letting you do more faster. More here.
• Making the little guy feel big: If you own a small business, you know how much you covet the marketing dollars of the big dogs. Well, the playing field has officially been leveled. Our new My Display Ads let businesses of any size run affordable online display (or banner) campaigns that reach local markets on Yahoo!. How affordable? Let’s just say we can make thirty bucks go a long way. These self-service ads are easy to create – just pick from one of our 800+ templates; customize text, images, colors and add your company logo; select your target audience; and off you go. You’re guaranteed to feel embiggened. More here.
• Proud to have Pride: It’s LGBT Pride month and we’re doing it up big with this year’s Yahoo! Pride site. We’ve got news from the Advocate, a killer timeline that summarizes the last century in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history, and an event finder for more than 1,000 Pride events around the world. But best of all, we might be sending you and a friend to Sydney for the LGBT Mardi Gras in February. But hurry, you have to enter by July 1st (or come meet us in San Francisco this weekend to enter in person). More here.
• Dog days of summer: The race is on and you’ve got about 11 weeks to make the most of it. It’s summertime and we’ve pulled together a little helpful microsite to keep you from squandering it. Need help with travel plans? Check out articles on getaways that involve beachs, golf, family, national park, or weekend furloughs. Want great recipes? We’ve got ideas for grilling, oven-free cooking, drinks, and chill-out treats. There’s also shopping ideas, tips on keeping that lawn green, kids activities, and giving your Avatar a more sunswept look. Check it out here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

The passing of the King of Pop set multiple records across Yahoo!. On our front page, the story “Michael Jackson rushed to hospital” was the highest clicking story in our history. It generated a whopping 800,000 clicks within 10 minutes and news of his death saw 560,000 clicks in 10 minutes. Also, the news area on our front page experienced five times the amount of traffic it normally receives.

Yahoo! News set an all-time record in unique visitors with 16.4 million people, surpassing our previous record of 15.1 million visitors on election day. Four million people visited the site between 3-4pm Pacific time, setting an hourly record. We also recorded 175 million page views yesterday, our fourth highest after Inauguration Day, the day after the Inauguration, and Hurricane Ike.

In Yahoo! Music, a staggering 21,000 people left comments on a blog post about the music legend. And over on Flickr, more than 4,000 Michael Jackson-related images have been posted in the last day, including art images labeled as “in tribute” and photos of spontaneous memorials all over the world, such as this Thriller “flashdance” in San Francisco.

Also, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at our search logs, revealing what our users were most curious about as they tried to reconcile the news:

• Michael Jackson – including variations of his name and nicknames
• Photos – especially for photos of his face and how it changed throughout the years; also, searches for “plastic surgery“
• Videos – both videos of Michael Jackson and his music videos
• Music – Jackson Five music and his solo work; also searches for his albums and songs
• Songs - including lyrics, especially for hits like Thriller, Man in the Mirror, Billy Jean, and PYT
• Questions – “did Michael Jackson die?”, “who is Michael Jackson?” (!!), “when did Michael Jackson die?”, “why did Michael Jackson die?”
• Cardiac arrest – and other medical terms mentioned in the news
• People – lots of searches for Jackson family members; notable friends like Quincy Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, his lawyer; ex-wives Debbie Rowe and Lisa Marie Presley; and his children
• Elvis Presley – not just because of the Lisa Marie connection, but people want to know how old Elvis was when he died
• Places - Holmby Hills, UCLA Medical Center, Encino, and his house location
• Hoax rumors – given that TMZ.com was the first to confirm his death, people wondered if it was all true. Then came rumors of Harrison Ford and Jeff Goldblum’s deaths.
• RIP Michael Jackson – was very prominent in Twitter
• Drugs – for the pain killer Demerol and other variations/spellings
• Celebrity death in threes – because apparently people are superstitious
• How to moonwalk – because nobody did it better

And that’s just from yesterday…

Michael Jackson’s death was clearly a seminal event. And unlike in the 1970s, we all have a remarkable tool that brings the world together — informed and connected — over those “I remember when…” moments.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Image from thechorompys

Douglas is Yahoo!’s resident JavaScript software architect. He has literally written the book on the coding language and his job involves training engineers at Yahoo! and industry-wide to use the code effectively. But he’s long lamented that there isn’t a good reference book for beginners. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and write it himself. But he quickly faced the dilemma of every expert – trying to think like a beginner.

Enter Mountain View High School.

Douglas decided that teaching a course in the principles of computer programming could prove mutually beneficial. So as a school volunteer, he worked with administrators to recruit a handful of willing students (mostly seniors) whose only prerequisite was experience in calculus. For most, this was their first exposure to software. Before long, they were thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn about values, variables, functions, recursion and other complexities of programming. By the end of the 12 weeks, the kids had conquered the basics and Douglas had experienced JavaScript through the eyes of a novice. Everybody won.

Now, this group may not have been statistically significant –- kids growing up in the Silicon Valley get plenty of exposure to technology, thanks to parents who often work at industry giants. And these students are headed to hallowed institutions like Cal Poly, Northwestern, and UC Berkeley to chase engineering degrees. But, nonetheless, they taught Douglas a lot about how to learn.

When Douglas sets off to write the book, I’m sure you’ll find some 17-year-olds in the acknowledgments. Also to be acknowledged are Mountain View High School Principal Keith Moody (also, incidentally, a former Raider defensive back) and teacher Madeline Miraglia, who made Douglas’ volunteer project possible.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Rock on, iPhone: There’s just something about radio — that element of surprise, that anticipation of what’s coming next, that man-I-haven’t-heard-that-song-in-years sensation. That’s the promise of our new Yahoo! Music iPhone app. Powered by CBS Radio, it lets you browse through 300+ stations within more than 20 genres (from Bollywood to Goth to Naughty Comedy), skip up to six tracks an hour, find local stations via GPS, share stations with friends, and buy music you like via iTunes. Never get stuck listening to Muzak again. Read more here, then download the app.
• Cirrus, cumulus, Flickr: The fact that Flickr has democratized photography and turned many hacks into professionals is not lost on Getty Images, the legendary stock photo agency. So back in March, we debuted the Flickr Collection on gettyimages.com, allowing mere mortals to license their work for commercial use. Today, Getty has introduced “photo clouds,” a new way to navigate groups of related photos within the Collection. You can join the community and create your own cloud around topics like “winter,” “out of Africa,” “bizarre photos,” and “fishy.” (Note the spiffy massage music that soothes as you explore). But wait! There’s also a screensaver, desktop widget, and a new Facebook app that lets you create a photo cloud to reflect your status mood. Brings new meaning to cloud computing. More here.
• Go commando with Colbert: If you’re addicted to Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, you probably know Stephen Colbert has been broadcasting from Iraq this week in support of troops stationed there. But he’s also leading an effort to make sure the children of said troops are getting what they need from a public school education. He’s teamed up with DonorsChoose.org to raise funds for military-serving schools, pitting the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard against each other. You can help by making a donation or spread the word by sporting a Colbert Avatar, with critical accessories like an eagle, bear, Colbert Nation hat, Che Colbert T-shirt, fireplace, and a desk. More here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• Surf less, do more: In the spirit of helping you take productivity to the Nth degree, we’re sprinkling great new third-party apps and widgets across our site. Now you can interact with content and tools from providers like Youtube, Mint.com, eBay, WordPress, Showtime, Picnik, and ZumoDrive in places like Yahoo! Mail, My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Connected TV and Zimbra email. We call it the gift of time. More here.
• Winning the email battle: If your email inbox has become your evil overlord, we’re empowering you with a great new weapon — new filters for Yahoo! Mail. Now you can basically snap your fingers and filter your inbox for the mail you actually want to read. Just click on “Contacts” above your inbox and presto, you’ll only see mail from people who are in your address book. The team is rolling this out to Classic and new Yahoo! Mail users in the U.S. and Australia over the next few weeks, with more countries to follow. More here.
• Sticky wickets: The ICC World Twenty20, the world championship of cricket, kicked off today in England and fans the world over won’t miss a single bowl-out, thanks to Yahoo! Cricket. Our T20 coverage includes exclusive cricket content, player chats, videos and images from the tournament. From history of the game to up-to-date statistics on cricketers, cricket.yahoo.com offers elaborate coverage — series stats and records, data on women’s cricket teams, coach interviews, fantasy game, and more. That outta get the Snick-o-Meter going.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor