The big guys and their blogging systems

Don't worry this post is not about the bloggers who make big money with their blogs.

WordPress seems to be the most popular blogging platform among high profile bloggers. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft all three have their own blogging platform. Yahoo has it's 360 blogs, Google has Blogger and Microsoft has Msnspaces blogs....

Google proudly uses Blogger for all its official blogs, they all have a .blogspot.com URI. Yahoo has a few of its blogs on 360 like the Yahoo Answers blog but they didn't think the Yahoo 360 was good enough for their corporate blog so they used WordPress instead. And they expect Yahoo users like me to take the 360 seriously? They built the system and they don't even have enough confidence in it to use it for they own blogs. What does that say about the quality reliability and perennity of the product? Maybe one day they'll buy Wordpress and close Yahoo 360 blogs and push all the 360 users to convert their blogs to Worpress blogs? (By the way Yahoo is going to transition the 360 starting next year).

Access Hollywood Video in Yahoo Mail

Have you noticed the videos in yahoo mail? No? Well I just watched a clip from Access Hollywood featuring Hayden Panettiere and Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus. They were asking Hayden about her relationship with Heroes co-start Milo Ventimiglia, she couldn't believe that people think they are dating -why not?-.

I'm not much of an online video watcher but I do watch entertainment and celebrity news on TV every once in a while and I'm a Heroes fan too. I prefer those videos over the car insurance ads.

Yahoo is closing Yahoo Photos

Only thirty more days until you loose all your photos permanently. I was in shock when I first read about it; though I should have seen it coming. After all aren't I the one who wrote about the redundancy of two such sites as Flickr and Yahoo Photos. Though a kind yahoo answers member did point out that they don't exactly offer the same service. Indeed Yahoo Photos it mostly aimed at online storage and printing while Flickr is mostly for online photo sharing (and hotlinks!).

I don't remember the last time I visited my Yahoo Photos account but I do have a friend who has hundreds of photos in his Yahoo Photos photo albums. He wasn't even aware of the closing until I told him about it. Even if you never used Yahoo Photos directly, if you have used the photomail feature in Yahoo Mail, those pictures you sent were uploaded to your Yahoo Photos account, if you don't do anything about them you will loose them forever. But hopefully you have all the original versions on your computer or on a CV/DVD don't you?


Here is what the people at Yahoo are saying :

We will officially close Yahoo! Photos on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 9 p.m. PDT.
Until then, we will offer you the opportunity to move to another photo sharing service (Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Photobucket), download your original resolution photos back to your computer, or buy an archive CD from our featured partner (for users of the New Yahoo! Photos only). All you need to do is choose from these options before we close or any photos remaining on Yahoo! Photos will be deleted and no longer accessible.

Go to http://closing.photos.yahoo.com to make a decision about your photos before September 20, 2007.

** Note for users of Yahoo! Photos’ international versions: Please stay tuned for information about changes in your countries later this year. You do not need to take action at this time.

Hopefully international users -those using yahoo.fr .co.uk etc..- have a bit more time to know what they'll do with their photos.

I personally don't like Flickr. I know how so many people think it's cool. I agree that pictures look better when displayed on Flickr than they do on Yahoo photos. Nevertheless Yahoo Photos (the old version) was very easy to use, it had a simple interface and it offered unlimited storage!

Yahoo kindly sent me a message today reminding me of the upcoming. Not having to manage two online photo sharing services is not the only reason why Yahoo is closing Yahoo Photos. Like I've pointed out earlier, they could have merged the two instead of eliminating one. By merging I mean keeping the best of both and offering the ultimated online photo sharing service that would have all the benefits of Yahoo Photos and Flickr combined. If you look at it closely many of the free features of Yahoo Photos are also available at Flickr but only with a paid membership of US $24.95 a year, not exactly change. I think we will probably see more internet companies do the same, have you pay for services and features that were previously free. You don't believe me? Wait and see.

Gmail and Yahoo Mail

I've been using Gmail for over a year now. In the beginning I had my Gmail addresses only for the sake of having one and the feeling of being part of a restricted group. But these days I use Gmail almost daily and many aspect of the Google Mail make the experience pleasant.

The first feature that I really enjoy is the automatic saving of emails addresses to contacts. How does it work, basically any email address that goes through your mail (sent/receive) is saved with the sender's name. When you have to write a message as soon as you start typing the address, Gmail suggests matches from all the addresses remembered so far and all you had to do was receive and send email.

Second most appreciated feature is the grouping of messages in conversations. I think it's even more ground braking - for me at least- than the first one. Now there is no need to go from page to page trying to find that message this person wrote you not so long ago, they are all kept together in the most convenient way, as long as they are from the same person and on the same topic.

I wont talk about the gadgets, like the chat within Gmail. But there are of course a few negative aspects to Gmail. For instance the standard interface is somewhat heavy. I understand it's not an issue for people with broadband internet access but if you have a poor quality internet connection you might want to avoid Gmail altogether. Otherwise you'll end up using the basic HTML version without all the cool features.

There is one other aspect of Gmail I particularly dislike. I've you noticed that when you check a message to perform an action (mark as read for example or add label) unless you go and uncheck the message it's left checked. This can be unpleasant if you happen to need to perform another action for example on other messages and forgot that you had not unchecked that first message. I don't understand why they left it like that you would think automatic unchecking after an action is perform is something they would have obviously thought of.

As a Yahoo Mail user of almost 10 years, I think Yahoo mail (the old version) still has a few features that Gmail might want to imitate because they do make the user's life easier, like the automatic "unchecking" mentioned early and the possibility to create folders. There is no way to create folders in Gmail. For those who think that folders are so not web 2.0, I want to say that they allow you to organize your incoming mail especially when you use them in conjunction with filters -or labels-. Adding labels help me identify specific messages but what I really want to do is have those messages delivered into one place. I have a few subscriptions and I don't like to have my subscription messages scattered around my inbox because sometimes I like to go through those particular messages in chronological order. Am I asking too much?

On Melinda Doolittle and Why Yahoo Search is still the most successful competitor to Google

Noticing people coming to Wannatech searching for "Melinda Dolittle" (a typo, the name is Doolittle), I thought I'd check to see what the former American Idol contestant has been doing since being eliminated from the show. In case you hadn't watched American Idol, Melinda Doolittle was one of the favorites to win the contest but she was eliminated right before the finals.

On Google a search for Melinda Doolittle gives you many results with only the (old) American Idol Melinda Doolittle page as an official source of information among the first few, five others are from technorati, wikipedia, blogs and fan sites. A Yahoo Search with the same query gives you Melida Doolittle's myspace page as the first result. Why is Melinda's myspace page a better result for her name than her Fox American Idol contestant profile page? Her myspace page is more recently updated, it has a listing of her upcoming performances and links to her latest blog entries. The Fox American Idol contestant page has not been updated since the beginning of the show in January, need I say more?

Yahoo's music is silent today

I didn't want the day to end without saying that I support the Internet Radio DoS (day of silence). I enjoy listening to launchcast radio stations very much I've discovered many artists through their service and even ended up buying their albums.

Yahoo music is one of the many webcasters who will stay silent today. Read the official Yahoo blog entries regarding the protest: On yodel anecdotal (Yahoo's corporate blog) and on Yahoo Music blog.

All should be done to preserve such services and encourage people to listen to music online "legally" and then eventually purchase albums or songs that they like. If it weren't for launchcast there are so many great artists I would never have known of. I can only encourage you to join the movement by clicking here for US residents, and here for people outside the US.

Update on July 16th, 2007: Hope for internet radio, but the battle is not over.

Yahoo! Music will be silent on June 26th

Yahoo is joining thousands of webcasters across the US in a protest movement against the Copyright Royalty Board's increase in royalty rates.

I just read the news on WebrProNews. None of Yahoo's official (Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo Music blog) had any posts regarding the protest.

Old News from Yahoo mail and Gmail

A while ago, Yahoo announced that it's free mail service would soon have unlimited storage. Yes, it means you can store as many emails, photos and all sorts of attachments as you want without ever worrying about reaching your storage limit.

I personally thought that this just wasn't exciting news at all. For someone who has practically not deleted an email since the latest limit increase to 1GB it sounded more like they were saying "well we don't really have anything interesting to offer you so we'll just make this announcement and try to make it look like a big deal".

It seemed to me like increasing the size of attachments would have been more useful. The 8MB limit is just something I can't live with anymore. I had to send a heavy file to a friend and the only option I had was to split it and send each peace one by one. I had a total of 15 pieces of files, a nightmare! Unlimited storage whatever! At my current rate it would have taken me a few years to reach my 1GB limit, I don't receive videos or mp3 daily. The worst part of this announcement is that it did not come with a date. No, I just see the message on the screen while signing in to Yahoo mail. So when am I going to have unlimited storage? I need to know just so I can brag about it!

This was back then, I don't even remember when, probably a few weeks ago. Last week, or was it the week before... As I was checking my emails on Gmail I noticed they were calling my attention to a new feature, 20MB attachments. Now that's news. Yes, surely, the people at Google are reading my mind! Bigger attachments! That's exactly what the people need. I'm guessing Yahoo and maybe Hotmail will soon follow and I'm hoping that 20MB is just a starting value until the battle starts for the free email service that allows the biggest attachments!

Technorati tags:gmail, yahoo mail