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Opening Up.
by Chrysi Philalithes
Yesterday both Yahoo! and Google revealed how they are opening up their systems. In a blog post on Yahoo! , Jay Rossiter, Senior VP Yahoo! Open, stated how Y! has opened up its platform to developers "who are now welcome to come in and access our tools and data so they can build applications for a more customized, social, and relevant Yahoo! network and beyond." Some of the things that you'll now be able to do are:
1. See what your friends are doing on Yahoo! and let them see what you are doing
2. Create a single, universal Y! profile
3. Develop a portable address book that you can take to other sites
4. Customize Yahoo! by making it easy to bring in content from other places across the web into Y!
5. Connect with people through social networking features
What I find really interesting about Yahoo! opening itself up in this way is that it's one step towards portability of content across the web. And that, in my humble opinion, is a good thing.
Google announced yesterday the launch of Google Apps Lab. There are three Google Apps that can now be used by business and schools:
1. Google Moderator: "Makes it easy to gather and prioritize questions or opinions on any topic from a group of people."
2. Google Code Reviews: "Facilitates quality software development by making it easy for peers to review an author's changes and share feedback."
3. Google Short Links: "Allows users to easily create descriptive shortcuts to web URLs. This makes it easier for users to recall and share the locations of important documents and web sites."
The fabulous TechCrunch reports that "Google will be opening up the platform to third party developers who want their apps to be available to the 'million-plus businesses' using Google Apps today."
The open systems are the Internet's free market: the pros of free markets (until the recent financial meltdown) are that they typically spur competition, leading to lower prices and better quality for consumers. Open systems have the same effect spurring innovation, from both companies and individual developers, to the benefit of all Internet users.
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