Since Yahoo and Microsoft broke off acquisition talks over the summer, Yahoo’s stock price has been tanking. Yahoo is working on an advertising deal with Google it hopes will help its stocks. In an effort to woo new users to its Yahoo Mail service, it has introduced a new feature.
The new feature is called Yahoo Calendar and it is a popup feature within Yahoo Mail. The application is built on the Zimbra platform, which is technology Yahoo acquired with the Zimbra purchase last year. Zimbra uses open standards allowing Yahoo Calendar to be compatible with other calendar services online.
Zimbra uses the iCal and CalDAV standards making Yahoo Calendar interoperable with online calendar services from Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, and Google. The calendar allows users to track, make, and share appointments. Zoom capability allows users to see appointments on a day scale or zoom out for the entire month. Other features include alerts, Flickr integration, to do list and more.
Yahoo
Written by Shane McGlaun on October 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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All New Yahoo! Calendar Beta Leverages Zimbra Technology,
Enhancing Sharing Capabilities and Productivity From Within Yahoo! Mail
SUNNYVALE, Calif., (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) announced the availability of an all-new Yahoo! Calendar, the No. 1 Web-based calendar service in the world(1). The new Yahoo! Calendar, which will begin rolling out in beta to users today, offers an intuitive, online social calendaring experience that enables people to be more productive.
Based on open standards, the new Yahoo! Calendar beta makes it easy for users to discover, share and keep track of events and appointments. Yahoo! Calendar is a popular feature within Yahoo! Mail, a key starting point for consumers on the Web and one of the most popular Web mail services in the world with more than 278 million users(2) per month.
Leveraging last year's acquisition of Zimbra, a leader in open source messaging and collaboration software that brought Ajax functionality to online calendars, the new Yahoo! Calendar is built on the Zimbra platform using the iCalendar (iCal) and CalDAV(3) standards. The new calendar is interoperable with other online calendar services including those from Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, AOL and Google, so users can share their calendar data with friends who use other online calendaring services and subscribe to any iCal-based public calendar.
Other new easy-to-use features allow consumers to keep track of activities through color-coding, drag and drop appointments for easy scheduling, and "zoom-in and -out" from a monthly "wall calendar" view to a single event -- all from within a Yahoo! Mail account. In addition, images from the Flickr photo community can be included to create a visual, unique-looking online calendar with interesting photos.
"With the new Yahoo! Calendar, we've taken the concept of a traditional paper calendar and transformed it into a smart, yet simple online tool that helps people to keep track of their schedules, stay organized and be more productive," said John Kremer, vice president, Yahoo! Mail.
"We're executing against our vision of a smarter inbox, and this is just a preview of what's to come in terms of integrating other network properties into the Yahoo! Mail experience. In the coming months, users will see additional features in Yahoo! Calendar to help them discover and keep track of their favorite events -- like sports team schedules and concert dates -- and even more features to enhance their overall communications experience."
Key features in the new Yahoo! Calendar include:
-- Sharing -- Layering functionality that makes sharing events and keeping track of group activities easier
-- Zoom -- Calendar zoom capabilities make it easy to add and view new Calendar entries
-- Photos -- Integration with Flickr adds an interesting visual component to the Calendar and gives it the feel of a classic wall calendar through interesting public, Creative Commons designated photos on Flickr
-- Alerts -- Reminder feature makes it simple to set email, IM or SMS reminders for important Calendar activities
-- Drag and Drop -- Web 2.0 drag and drop functionality makes it simple to move appointments to new times -- all without refreshing the Web page
-- "To Do" List -- A simple and handy "To List" feature makes it easy to keep track of important chores and tasks
When the Yahoo! Calendar beta becomes generally available in the coming months, it will include additional synching features and the capability to discover events of interest through tight integration with Upcoming.org and other Yahoo! properties. The Yahoo! Calendar beta is currently being rolled out in five markets: the United States, Brazil, India, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Plans for global general availability will be announced later this year.
Openness is a major aspect of Yahoo!'s overall strategy, and open standards like CalDAV and iCalendar are key components. Yahoo! is a member of CalConnect, the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium that helps further the development and adoption of these standards, and is hosting the CalConnect XIII members' meetings at Yahoo!'s offices October 6th-10th.
About Yahoo! Calendar
As the world's most popular Web-based calendar service, Yahoo! Calendar makes it easier than ever for people to keep track of all the important events in their life in one place. With Yahoo! Calendar, people can add events and appointments, send invitations, share their schedule with friends and family and set up email, IM or SMS reminders for important Calendar activities. The Web-based Yahoo! Calendar is tightly integrated with Yahoo! Mail, a key starting point on the Web and one of the most popular Web mail services in the world with more than 278 million users. Yahoo! Calendar is accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection -- cafe, work, airport -- with no download required. The new Yahoo! Calendar beta is built on Zimbra technology using the iCalendar (iCal) and CalDAV standards and is interoperable with other online calendar services.
Users can learn more and register to try the Yahoo! Calendar beta at: http://switch.calendar.yahoo.com.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal.
Written by Maximus on October 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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In an e-mail service Mail.Ru a new opportunity to restore the password - using a mobile phone. According to the forecasts of the portal, approximately six months it could become one of the most popular. To make available new functionality, you must specify the mobile phone number in your already existing mailbox or in its creation.
If you need a password to restore cell phone mailbox owner will be sent an SMS with a special code. The system asks to enter the code and, after verification, will establish a new password. The ability to recover your password using the mobile phone has become the third in the postal service Mail.Ru. Users can «remember» password by sending him to an additional e-mail or answering the security question. Today 75% of the cases used «secret question». Mail.Ru expected that after 6 months up to half of the users, faced with the problem would be «remember» passwords new way.
Written by Maximus on October 8th, 2008 with no comments.
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Calendar Interoperability for Microsoft(R)
Exchange Server Now Available; Zimbra(TM) Debuts
Open Framework for IBM(R) Lotus Domino
Messaging Server, Meeting Maker(TM), and Others
Meets Needs of Large Organizations to Enable Heterogeneous Computing
Environments
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sep 30, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Zimbra, a
Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) company and the leader in open source, next-generation messaging and collaboration software, today announced the availability of a new open extension framework for Zimbra Collaboration Suite(TM) (ZCS) that enables two-way interoperability with leading collaboration platforms. Large enterprises and academic institutions can now easily integrate teams using Zimbra to work seamlessly with other departments that use different collaboration servers like Microsoft Exchange, exploring the benefits of Zimbra without having to make the decision to replace their current systems up front. This extends Zimbra's history of openness and compatibility to a broader range of platforms, and builds on Yahoo!'s leadership in e-mail as a key starting point for users.
The first extension, built by Zimbra for the Microsoft Exchange 2003 platform, and now in beta, allows Zimbra users to access and share two-way free/busy information, schedules and global address book with colleagues whose data resides on Microsoft Exchange. The framework is also openly available for anyone in the Zimbra community to write an extension to other collaboration platforms such as IBM Lotus Domino, Novell(R) GroupWise(R), or PeopleCube Meeting Maker.
"Interoperability with Exchange and other leading collaboration systems is a top request by many enterprises and academic institutions where mixed deployments are common," said Satish Dharmaraj, Zimbra co-founder and Yahoo! vice president. "Zimbra's recent growth with large organizations has been tremendous, with recent customer wins and deal expansions including Dai Nippon Publishing, Reliance Industries, H&R Block and Texas A&M University. This interoperability builds upon a long record of compatibility work by Zimbra and is one of the key needs for our largest customers."
ZCS Interoperability for Exchange features:
-- Free/busy and schedule interoperability: ZCS now has the ability to view free/busy calendar information in Exchange, allowing a Zimbra user to schedule a meeting with Exchange users as well as book resources like meeting rooms. Conversely Exchange users can also schedule ZCS users; in this regard, it is no different than working with another Exchange user.
-- Integration with Active Directory: Integration with Active Directory provides a unified Global Address List (GAL) of both ZCS and Exchange users in the same deployment.
-- Anytime, anywhere access: The feature works in all Zimbra clients, including Zimbra's AJAX Web Client, Outlook via Zimbra Connector for Outlook, Zimbra Mobile supported devices including any BlackBerry or Windows Mobile based smartphones. Exchange users can use whatever client they use currently such as Outlook.
-- Minimal IT support: ZCS Interoperability for Exchange doesn't require any changes on the Exchange server; the service is completely managed in the Zimbra Administration Console.
"As a research facility, our researchers, scientists and administrative teams have varying needs of collaboration tools. We want to give each department and all of our users the flexibility of using the collaboration platform that works best for them, while avoiding the IT headache of a mixed environment," said Brian Finley, IT Strategist, Argonne National Laboratory. "The Zimbra interoperability framework offers us a way to seamlessly integrate teams and users on various platforms while giving each department the freedom of choice to use any platform they desire."
Pricing and Availability
ZCS Interoperability for Exchange is free for all ZCS Open Source and Network Edition users and the framework is available now for anyone to develop extensions to other leading platforms. Zimbra Outlook Connector and Zimbra Mobile are available for ZCS Network Edition users.
The ZCS 5.0 Open Source Edition is free. The commercially supported ZCS 5.0 Network Edition is available for a 60-day free trial on the Zimbra website. Zimbra's Hosted Demo (www.zimbra.com/demo) is available for an immediate test drive of ZCS.
ZCS Network Edition includes product support as well as software subscriptions to new releases, updates and patches. ZCS is available on-premise or as a hosted service and is available at a significant educational or non-profit discount. Please contact sales@zimbra.com for information. Users can discuss topics related to the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and provide feedback at www.zimbra.com/forums/.
About Zimbra
Zimbra, a Yahoo! company, is a leading provider of collaboration software for universities, businesses and service providers. Zimbra's rich AJAX interface is available on or offline to dramatically improve the collaboration experience. Zimbra is available on-premise or on-demand through our extensive hosted partner program. More information at www.zimbra.com.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal.
Written by Maximus on September 30th, 2008 with no comments.
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San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News First Customers to Go Live
NEW YORK, (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Emmy(R) Award nominee and Golden Globe(R) Award winner Jon Hamm of AMC's original drama series Mad Men(R), joined
Yahoo!'s Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang, President Sue Decker and Executive Vice President of Yahoo! U.S. Hilary Schneider for the 5th annual Advertising Week conference in New York to announce the launch of APT from Yahoo!. Formerly known as AMP!, APT from Yahoo! is an intelligent innovation in online media, a digital advertising solution that streamlines the process of planning, buying and optimizing display advertising. APT is designed to simplify the process of buying and selling ads online while connecting all the market players -- publishers, advertisers, agencies, networks, partners and developers -- from a unified platform to do business more efficiently and effectively. The platform is rolling out as planned in phases beginning with publishers the San Francisco Chronicle of Hearst Newspapers and San Jose Mercury News of MediaNews Group.
"The advertising landscape has changed dramatically since the days when Don Draper was roaming the halls of Sterling Cooper," said Jerry Yang. "While Mad Men celebrates the Madison Avenue of 40 years ago, APT from Yahoo! clearly represents the future."
As a Web-based solution with the potential to allow unprecedented ease of cross-selling across the largest open network of publishers, advertisers, ad networks and agencies from a single integrated interface, APT is a single platform for connected digital advertising, including ad serving, ad network and ad exchange. It is designed to streamline advertisers' ad-buying process for multiple accounts across multiple publishers, and enable creative testing and campaign optimization. It is also intended to help advertisers precisely yet easily identify audiences through geographic, demographic and interest-based targeting while enabling publishers to better monetize their content as well as making better connections across the Web.
"One of the major benefits of APT from Yahoo! is the fact that it's an open system, designed to enable advertisers to reach their audiences in their favorite places across the Web, and publishers to monetize inventory across the broadest possible demand channels," said Sue Decker. "As we transform the advertising marketplace, we're excited to have key members of the Newspaper Consortium, the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, lead the way in this historic journey."
For publishers like the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, APT is designed to improve monetization capabilities and increase advertising revenue with solutions targeted at accelerating the ability to take advantage of premium brand and performance-based advertising. Key benefits include:
-- Fostering a more transparent marketplace through the ability to connect to new business partners for cross-selling;
-- Providing ad selection and inventory management tools to match relevant ads to marketers' target audience; and
-- Allowing publishers to manage their own private networks.
"The Newspaper Consortium's open, collaborative and exciting partnership with Yahoo! is enabling a crucial transformation in the newspaper industry," said George Irish, President, Hearst Newspapers. "With this next-generation platform we can realize the powerful combination of Yahoo!'s technology innovations, national reach and partner network with the Consortium's rich local content, sales forces and local market expertise."
"When Yahoo! showed us the platform's potential in February this year, the Newspaper Consortium was impressed by Yahoo!'s commitment and investment in a game-changing technology that would significantly advance our efforts to monetize the Web," said William Dean Singleton, Vice Chairman and CEO, MediaNews Group. "Seven months later, I am very proud to announce that Yahoo! has executed, and we are jointly accelerating toward fully using the platform to aggregate inventory, target relevant audiences and drive revenue growth."
Some of the initial capabilities featured in the new platform include:
-- Guaranteed cross-selling with pre-defined selling rules
-- Ad Exchange for non-guaranteed inventory
-- Advanced audience targeting techniques based upon behavior and geography
-- Inventory lookup and forecasting across individual and partner sites
-- Creative workflow automation and personalization
-- Powerful rate card tools for improved yield management
-- Filters for better controls around creatives
-- Flexible and powerful APIs
-- Federated ad call to support multiple ad formats
Yahoo! has developed a systematic integration plan for adding other Newspaper Consortium partners onto APT throughout this year and into next year. APT is a significant component of the unique and deep collaboration between Yahoo! and America's newspapers. Launched in 2006 with 176 newspapers across the United States, the strategic partnership to create one of the largest and most comprehensive advertising networks in the online industry now comprises 35 media companies spanning 784 newspapers.
Yahoo! will start to make the platform available to other parties including advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies in 2009.
Additional information on APT is available at http://apt.yahoo.com. For press materials including executive bios, APT screen shots and images visit http://apt.yahoo.com/newsworthy.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.
Written by Maximus on September 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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Advertisers Invited to Join Conversation on Industry Changes
NEW YORK, (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) announced the formation of a Digital Advisory Council that will consist of industry executives from its agency and advertiser partners. The Council will work collaboratively to explore the continued evolution of digital media and online advertising.
Yahoo! has created many partnerships over the past eighteen months that are reflective of the paradigm shift toward openness occurring across the online media landscape. Multi-year partnerships with premium publishers, the Newspaper Consortium, as well as the Yahoo!-Google services agreement all are part of Yahoo!'s more open approach.
"As Yahoo! partners with publishers to extend the reach of our network, we have formed the Digital Advisory Council to identify innovative ways to improve advertiser performance, particularly in anticipation of the rollout of Yahoo's new advertising management platform in the coming months," said Hilary Schneider, executive vice president, Yahoo! U.S.
The Council will serve as a vehicle for soliciting feedback and will supplement Yahoo!'s daily conversations with advertisers. Active discussion with key customers is an important pillar in making Yahoo! a partner of choice, particularly during a time when competition for ad dollars is as robust as ever. Yahoo!'s Digital Advisory Council will first meet in the fourth quarter of this year.
"Opening up Yahoo! is a key part of our strategy, and we want to help advertisers understand how they can benefit from this approach," Schneider added. "At the same time, there has been confusion and misinformation surrounding Yahoo!'s agreement with Google, which represents another key milestone in opening up our network. As questions emerge about how Yahoo! will implement this agreement, the Advisory Council will provide a forum for us to engage in a dialogue with key customers on those issues."
Written by Maximus on September 23rd, 2008 with no comments.
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Yahoo! and Rhapsody Deliver Full Song Playback in Yahoo! Search
SEATTLE & SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sep 18, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) and Rhapsody are putting the play buttons right in the search box and making the Web playable. Beginning today, users who search for an artist with available content on Yahoo! will be able to click play right in the Yahoo! shortcut at the top of the search results and instantly stream full-length songs by that artist through the FoxyTunes Player, which is powered by Rhapsody. The launch, part of the planned expansion of the Rhapsody service across Yahoo!, represents the continuation of Yahoo! Music's strategy to "play the Web" and furthers Yahoo!'s strategy to open its sites to feature content and services from across the Web.
The Yahoo! Search music playback experience is now powered by Rhapsody, the leading digital music service from RealNetworks(R), Inc. (Nasdaq:RNWK) and MTV Networks and offers full-song playback for more than 5 millions tracks. Yahoo! recently partnered with Rhapsody to offer users access to Rhapsody's acclaimed subscription music service and have now extended that relationship to include music playback within Yahoo! Search. This partnership allows all users to listen to 25 free full-length tracks every 30 days. Once 25 songs have been played, users can subscribe to the Rhapsody Unlimited streaming service or continue to listen to an unlimited number of 30-second samples until the next month begins.
Yahoo!'s FoxyTunes Player enables the on-demand, web-based playback of music within Yahoo! Search and throughout Yahoo! Music. When a user clicks a play button in the Search results, the FoxyTunes Player will launch near the bottom of the browser window. The player is easy to use, offers full functionality for song playback, and includes an expandable playlist option. Users can continue to browse their results page while the player is in use, as search results will continue to scroll while the player stays in place near the bottom of the browser window.
"The launch of full-song playback in Yahoo! Search brings us closer to realizing Yahoo! Music's vision of making the web playable and removing the barriers that prevent people from clicking play and hearing music," said Michael Spiegelman, head of Yahoo! Music. "The powerful combination of Rhapsody and Yahoo!'s FoxyTunes Player will greatly enhance the discovery and consumption of music on the Web by giving online music fans what they want -- an easy way to hear music."
"The integration of Rhapsody playback into Yahoo! Search is a major step toward our goal of delivering "Music Without Limits" to consumers across the Web," said Neil Smith, vice president of business management for Rhapsody America. "The integration between Rhapsody and Yahoo! eliminates additional steps that previously served as a barrier to connecting consumers with artists and their music."
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.
About Rhapsody
Rhapsody (www.rhapsody.com) offers an integrated and immersive digital music experience accessible to consumers via their computer, portable music device and soon their mobile phone. Rhapsody is the exclusive digital music service for RealNetworks, Inc. and for MTV Networks' music and pop-culture brands in the United States. Rhapsody is a service of Rhapsody America LLC, a joint venture between RealNetworks, Inc. (Nasdaq:RNWK) and MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom (NYSE:VIA) (NYSE:VIA.B).
Written by Maximus on September 18th, 2008 with no comments.
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Offers Innovative Integrated Mobile Messaging Combined With Social Address Book For New Level of Convenience
SAN FRANCISCO, --
Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) announced the preview availability of Yahoo! oneConnect, the revolutionary new social address book that brings together a user's circle of friends, their lives, and all the ways they communicate into one seamless, easy-to-use application. Yahoo! oneConnect is now available in the Apple(R) iPhone(TM) App Store and is also expected to support additional devices in the coming months.
With Yahoo! oneConnect, users can integrate all their contacts, send instant or SMS messages, post their status, and view the latest activity from their favorite social networks -- making it easy to stay connected and in the loop.
"The iPhone has ignited and captured the imagination of what a mobile phone can do," said Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Yahoo! Connected Life. "The rich feature set of the iPhone enables the best way to experience oneConnect. The powerful combination of Yahoo! Blueprint, the mobile platform, and the iPhone SDK, was leveraged to create this unique experience of oneConnect for millions of iPhone users."
Yahoo! oneConnect for iPhone
Yahoo! oneConnect for the iPhone builds on Yahoo!'s market-leading and award-winning mobile products and reinforces the Company's intent to lead and enable the global mobile ecosystem. Key features include:
-- Full-featured address book that integrates contacts from the user's Yahoo! Address Book, iPhone and social networks.
-- Pulse: A convenient way to see what's happening on your social networks. The initial version of Yahoo! oneConnect supports networks including Bebo, Dopplr, Facebook(R), Flickr(R), Friendster(R), Last.fm(R), MySpace(R), Twitter(TM) and YouTube(TM).
-- Integrated mobile messaging with your friends via SMS and Yahoo! Messenger, including support for avatars, photos, and emoticons.
-- Favorites: A simple way to keep your most important people close at hand to check on status, call or send a quick message or email.
Availability
Yahoo! oneConnect is available today free of charge for the iPhone and iPod touch(R) in the United States. In future releases, Yahoo! oneConnect is expected to support additional devices and become available internationally.
Visit the Yahoo! booth at CTIA Wireless to see Yahoo! oneConnect for the iPhone at Booth 417. For more information on Yahoo! oneConnect, go to http://mobile.yahoo.com/oneconnect/iphone. Screenshots of Yahoo! oneConnect as well as Yahoo!'s complete CTIA press kit can be found at http://mobile.yahoo.com/newsroom.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
Yahoo! oneConnect and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Written by Maximus on September 12th, 2008 with no comments.
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