Everyone is doing it – from New Orleans to Las Vegas, and even Hawaii is involved in the college bowl fever. It doesn’t matter if your team didn’t make the cut, you can still have fun by joining Yahoo! Sports College Bowl Pick’em. This is your last chance to earn college glory, and this is the only time it doesn’t matter if you’re a duck or a gator. You can have fun picking the winners, even if your team isn’t playing.
 
Don’t let the fact that you’ve never played stop you, the rules are easy:

1. Sign up at Yahoo! Sports College Bowl Pick’em   
2. Pick the teams you think will win – there is expert advice available or just go with your favorite mascot or team colors
3. Then watch the points stack up!

Sign up now because the players hit the field this weekend and that’s when the boys will be separated from the men! And a big college cheer to the Yahoo! Sports team that delivered the most exciting college fantasy game of the season.

Today, of course, is the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks in NYC, the Pentagon, and rural Pennsylvania. To ensure we never forget, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum just put out a call for people from around the globe to “Make History” with their images, videos, and stories as a permanent digital archive. Here’s how we made history this week:

• 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

Six years ago today, some unruly trees in Ohio plunged 55 million people into darkness during the Northeast Blackout of 2003. While inconvenient, it forced people out of high-rise apartments, neighbors bonded, guitars went acoustic, candles were lit, and there might even be a higher than average number of kindergartners this year. Here are our new beginnings from this week:

• 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

Hello, Yahoo!. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio here. August is upon us, which means football season is a mere field goal kick away. I’m already making sure my Buccaneers’ shirt is without mustard stains and ready to go.

I’ve decided to make this football season count by joining the Yahoo! Sports Mayoral Face-off, taking on ten other mayors from football havens around the country for a chance to win big money for charity. Mayors from cities like San Francisco, Kansas City, and Green Bay are putting together their dream fantasy teams. Whoever wins the league gets $15,000 to donate to a local sports program — my pick is NFL YET Tampa Bay. In addition, the city that collects the most votes from football fans scores another $15,000 for their non-profit. Take that, budget cuts!

I view this as not only an opportunity to compete for money, but as a chance to demonstrate why Tampa Bay easily has the best football fans in the country! Plus, it’s a great way to interact with my fellow mayors outside of politics. But most of all, this is an occasion for me to prove that I, Mayor Pam Iorio, know my football, how to craft a winning team and how to have fun.

However, I cannot do this alone. I’m calling on the great residents of Tampa and the entire Bay area as well as the citizens of other participating cities to show their support by voting in the poll for the top football city (poll opens tomorrow). In addition, I call on citizens from across the country to join us in the fun and awaken their competitive spirits by creating their own Yahoo! Fantasy Football leagues.

So here’s a heartfelt good luck to all the other Mayors in the league. Nation, we look forward to you joining us in the fun this season. You can follow our progress and your city’s polling status at Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football. Now it’s time to face off!

Pam Iorio
Mayor
Tampa, Florida