Nine years ago today, the first blueprint of the human being emerged as the Human Genome Project released a first draft of a fully sequenced human genome. All hail the double helix! Since then, scientists have used it to screen for various illnesses and link genes with specific diseases. Here’s what we decoded this week:

• 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.

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Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

So long, bunnies ears. Hello, digital clarity. If you have an analog television, today is D-Day (in the U.S. at least) — the long-fabled digital switchover is here. If you haven’t gotten your converter box yet, your TV is SOL — and static-y ghosts have gone the way of Pong, Betamax, and the 8-track. Here’s what we digitized this week:

• 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.

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Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Whether you spell it doughnut or donut, today’s the official day of honor for these deep-fried morsels. Back in 1938, the Salvation Army declared National Doughnut Day to celebrate the women who went to the front lines during WWI to feed the troops, often cooking doughnuts right inside their helmets. Now you know why soldiers were commonly called doughboys. (Note: This should not be confused with Flickr’s hallowed Day of the Donut). Here’s what we fried up this week:

• 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.

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Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Tonight marks the end of an era. After 17 years, Jay Leno will give his last “Tonight Show” monologue, joining Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson in the ranks of former hosts. From taking Hugh Grant to the woodshed for using a prostitute to hosting the first sitting American president on a late-night show, Leno gave you plenty of reasons to delay your bedtime. Here’s what we pulled on stage this week:

• Photos without the jail time: If you’ve ever hesitated before throwing that copyrighted photo into a presentation or web page, you’ll celebrate this news. Yahoo! Search has added a Creative Commons license filter to Yahoo! Image Search to help you quickly identify photos that are OK to reuse or modify. No other search engine saves your bacon that way. Not only do we keep you out of trouble, you’ll never even the see the photos you don’t have permission to use — it’s like Eve didn’t even know the apple existed. More here.
• Search that sport: That little search box just made you a better sports fan. Yahoo! Search has added a sports team shortcut that helps you keep track of your favorite teams, leagues, and events simply by typing in a keyword or two. When’s the next Lakers game? Who’s winning the French Open? Just go to Yahoo! Search. The sports team shortcut covers the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA, and college sports leagues including the NCAAF and NCAAB. More here.
• 360 comes full circle: Yes, it’s official — Yahoo! 360 is coming to an end. We know, we know — it took us a while to pull the plug. But rather than rush the process and risk losing your precious photos and prose, we wanted to make sure we had a solution in place — Yahoo! Profiles. You can move your content over to your profile, where your connections can keep tabs on you, or take it to go. You can export your entries to blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and MoveableType. More here.
• Comments with a click: And in the hilarious third-party app category… Feeling too lazy, bored, tired, or uninspired to write a comment for that Flickr photo? Good thing some clever souls from Virginia have developed the Flickr comment generatr. You can choose between simple (”this is super :-p”) or verbose (”i eat up the framing and foto ;-) good job my friend”). Now you can be meaningless without even trying.

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It’s elementary… Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of legendary detective Sherlock Holmes, was born 150 years ago today. Holmes and his trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson, mastered the art of observation and deduction to solve crimes in 56 stories and four novels. But what we want to know is whether Mr. Spock is truly a descendant. Here’s the code we cracked this week:

• Buzzing the world: There’s news and there’s news people really care about. That’s what Yahoo! Buzz helps you filter. And now the site has made it even easier to keep tabs on what your contacts and the greater community find most interesting. As part of a fresh redesign, a new “Buzz Updates” tab surfaces the submitting, voting, and commenting activity from your friends and others. And given Yahoo! Buzz’s runaway success as the (insert shameless self-promotion) most popular social content service in the US, Yahoo! Buzz got its passport and just landed in India. Now readers all over India can keep tabs on what’s hot in everything from Bollywood to business in Bangalore. More here.
• Just tell me: The iPhone is truly the one thing I’d want on a desert isle, but let’s face it — its keyboard leaves something to be desired. That’s why Yahoo! Mobile just launched voice search for our Yahoo! Mobile iPhone app. Now you can search for anything — flight numbers, restaurants, gas stations, web sites — by just moving your mouth. You can also customize your “My Interests” tab with your voice — just click on “add anything” and say the topic you want to explore and add to your page. Our voice-enabled search is now available on more than 80 different devices/platforms - from Blackberry (including the newest ones) to Nokia to iPhone and Windows Mobile. Download the app or your update.
• Catch that play?: You can read about sports online, but it’s video that really gets the adrenaline flowing. Yahoo! Sports just revamped their video player so you can do more with the play-by-play. It now has a larger viewing window and you can watch videos in full screen. You can also share links or embed your favorite plays in your blog or what-have-you. And handy big thumbnails make it easier to browse through the video library. Check out this Lakers’ dunk. And then go get air sick.
• Group update: Six months ago, you might have noticed activity updates from your friends popping up in places like Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Profiles. They’ve included activity on Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Music, delicious, and more. This week, Yahoo! Groups joined the fray. Now the questions, answers, advice, and photos you share with your group can also become an update for your Yahoo! connections, offering more airtime for the content you’ve created. And don’t worry — you have complete control over what you want to share. Read more here.
• Make it green: If you fancy yourself a MacGyver type and have an idea for a great new “green” gizmo, get thee to Yahoo! Green’s new “Make It Green” campaign. We’re searching for the best new green products and do-it-yourself projects so we can turn them into real products. What’s in it for you? A chance to star on the PBS TV show Everyday Edisons, a check for $2500, and the glory of knowing that your little planet-saving idea is lining the shelves of stores. Not particularly inventive? That’s ok — just go give a thumbs up to whatever idea you like best. You’ve got until June 30th. Check it out.

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There are just so many bizarre holidays today, we couldn’t just pick one. So today, extend your bed’s lifespan by honoring Flip Your Mattress Day, tackle your feline for Hug Your Cat Day, down a box of Chips Ahoy for National Chocolate Chip Day, and paint the town red for Nylon Stockings Day. (And just wait for tomorrow - it’s National Sea Monkey Day!) Here’s what we revered this week:

• Daytime drama: This whole working thing getting in the way of keeping up with great moments in soap operas, game shows, and talk shows? Yahoo! TV to the rescue with Daytime in No Time, a new daily video show that recaps the day’s most memorable daytime TV scenes in three minutes. Catch daily watercooler highlights from shows like Good Morning America, the Price is Right, the View, Rachael Ray, Ellen, and, of course, Oprah. The show follows in the footsteps of Primetime in No Time, whose late night TV recaps have earned it the distinction of the Web’s most watched original programming (~230 million streams to date!). Can’t hide the headphones from your boss? Read their daytime blog.
• Music videos get foxy: If you’ve discovered FoxyTunes, the toolbar that lets you control your tunes from within your browser, you know how excellent it is not to have to switch between apps when listening to music. Now you can use it to control YouTube music videos — from watching a single video to navigating video playlists. Do all this from the convenience of your FoxyTunes toolbar while you’re surfing in other tabs. More here.

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The young Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk make a comeback tonight in the debut of Star Trek. It’s a good day to take stock of how far once-fictional technologies have come — handheld communicator (cell phone), medical tricorder (MRI scanner), holodeck (virtual reality headset), universal translator (Phraselator), scalpel-free surgery (ultrasound surgery), communications earpiece (Bluetooth). And as the ultimate evidence of progress, Spock reportedly cried. Here’s what technology we evolved this week:

• Personal realtor: Home prices are lower than they’ve been in at least a decade - time for a deal! Good thing Yahoo! Real Estate just made house hunting a cinch. Scribbling down lists of listings? Bummed you missed that great new house when it came on the market? You can now save both your searches and your favorite houses with one click. You can also sign up for alerts for new pads that meet your criteria or when the price changes on a place you’ve been eyeing. What’s more, you can get listing updates via My Yahoo! or any RSS feed reader. If only we could figure out how to fix those banks! Check it out here.
• Summer flick fiesta: So many movies, so few summer nights. The new Yahoo! Movies Summer Movie Guide just hit the street and it lets you get a preview of the great new titles coming out this summer. Browse by month, genre, or popularity. Each movie summary includes a recap of the story, the release date, three good reasons to see it, and trivia you might not know. You’ll also find photos and video trailers and clips (many in HD). You’ve got a lot of popcorn in your future.

And finally, a plug for this weekend’s celebration of Flickr’s 5.25th birthday. If you’re in San Francisco, come by for cupcakes and divine photography from 4-8pm tomorrow. RSVP here. Can’t make it? Check out the photos we’ll be projecting on the walls.

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Today we honor cheese — and not just because a certain CEO is from Wisconsin. It’s National Cheeseball Day. A day to craft your favorite dairy product into an orb, roll it in some kind of nutty ingredient, grab the crackers, and hail the beauty that is the cheeseball. (Suggested recipe from Amy Sedaris). Here’s what we put on a platter this week:

• Kittens vs. sunsets: This is the perfect Friday night distraction — Flickr Trends. A Flickr engineer mashed up the Flickr API with a trend chart, allowing you to compare the popularity (or in this case, the frequency of being a photo subject) of two terms. So go see which reigns supreme — blondes or brunettes, town or country, beer or fruit juice, mayo or ketchup, good or evil, boxers or briefs. Take it for a spin.
• Faretheewell Jumpcut: As we took stock of our myriad products, we determined it no longer made sense to maintain Jumpcut, the site that let you upload, edit, and share videos. So as of June 15th, we’ll shut its doors. We’ll soon offer a tool that lets you download your videos, which you might want to move over to Flickr or Yahoo! Video. We’re really sorry to see it go, but change we must.
• Get your vote on: This marginally qualifies for the Product Pulse, but it’s been a quiet week due to our pre-earnings quiet period! The nominees are in — the 2009 People’s Voice voting is now open for the Webby Awards and we’re honored to have omg, Flickr, Upcoming, and Yahoo! Go 3.0 in the running. Vote now!

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Nine years ago today, the NASDAQ composite peaked at 5132.52, marking the beginning of the end of the dot.com boom. In the year that followed, we bade farewell to the Pets.com sock puppet, those wonderful Webvan groceries, buying a pack of gum via Kozmo.com, or getting fashion advice from the Boo.com avatar. Here’s what persevered this week:

• Musical revival: Blowing its doors off their hinges, Yahoo! Music has fully embraced the open web with launch of its new Artist Pages. You’ll find downloads from iTunes; albums from Amazon; streams from Pandora, Last.fm and Rhapsody; music videos from YouTube and Yahoo!; photos from Flickr; and tickets from Ticketmaster – for more than 500,000 artists. And you call the shots on whatever modules you want to see. Eventually artists will be able to publish directly into their pages and developers will beef up our modules gallery. Music to our ears. More here.
• Instant iGratification: No need to get all twitchy when you leave your desk — Yahoo! Messenger is now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Released into the wild this week, the free Yahoo! Messenger app can now be found in the iTunes App Store. It’s got a lot of the same bells and whistles — photo sharing, stealth mode, status messages, archiving, emoticons. More here. What?! You don’t have an iPhone? Lucky for you Yahoo! Messenger works with other phones, too — check the roster here.

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Twenty-three years ago today, IBM released its first personal portable information manipulator — otherwise known as a laptop. With its clamshell design, the IBM PC Convertible weighed about 13 pounds (akin to a midsized watermelon), utilized two 720K floppy disk drives (no internal hard disk), and measured smaller than a suitcase (progress!). Here’s what we evolved this week:

• Mobile home: As announced in February, we’ve collected all of our mobile offerings into one handy application called, succinctly, Yahoo! Mobile. And this week, it said “sayonara, beta!” You can now access Yahoo! Mobile for the Web on 300+ devices with HTML-enabled mobile browsers (http://new.m.yahoo.com/) or download the free Yahoo! Mobile app from the Apple iPhone App Store. It’s clean, it’s simple, and it’s open, so you not only get quick access to your favorite Yahoo! services (Mail, Messenger, News, Finance, etc.), you can check your Gmail, see Twitter and Facebook updates, read up on RSS feeds, and more. And, as an added bonus, iPhone users can also download Yahoo! Messenger. More here.
• Get a new image: Searching for an image? You might have noticed our spiffy new Yahoo! Image Search preview page, which is both prettier and more helpful. Click on that thumbnail of Vin Diesel and you get rewarded with a much larger image, along with thumbnails for other top image results and suggestions for related searches (ie, Dwayne Johnson, Brad Pitt, Paul Walker, etc.). More here.
• See attached: Yahoo! Groups is bringing back an old concept — the email attachment! Removed in 2003, we’re reviving this capability so Group members can share images and files and be able to retrieve them at a later date. That’s especially great news if you’re receiving digests. This new tool is currently in beta and will be rolling out to all groups over the next few weeks. Let the kitten photosharing begin! More here, including how-tos for moderators.
• On the Twitter sideline: Are you a Twitterholic looking for an easier way to monitor what’s being said about you or your brand? One of our engineers, playing around with Adobe AIR and the Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI), has created a nifty little desktop application called Sideline that lets you set up and save multiple tabbed search topics for Twitter conversations. Not bad for a side project. Take it for a spin here.

And, of course, don’t miss our new Ideological Search! ;-)

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