Categories
Software and Apps Yahoo

Flickr iPhone App Updates To Support Retina Display

Yahoo has announced an update to their Flickr for iPhone app that brings support to the retina display screen that is available with the latest generation of iPhone. This means that the new version 1.3 of Flickr iPhone app will now render images compatible to the 960×640 pixel resolution of the iPhone 4 display. You will recall that the newly launched iPod Touch too comes with a retina display and there are speculations – though unconfirmed – that iPad 2 could feature this high resolution display.

Apart from support for retina display, the new Flickr iPhone app update also preserves EXIF data (date, time and geo-data) across all photos. Users can now upload photos in batches of five. Besides, the new update also enhances social sharing functions making it easy for users to share pictures via Twitter using the Flic.kr URL shortener.

The app is free to download and can be accessed by visiting this iTunes link.

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Web Yahoo

Del.icio.us Shutdown May Not Happen

Del.icio.us aka Delicious.com is without doubt one of the most loved, if not most used, bookmarking service. The website has been around for more than half a decade as a Yahoo service. Although Delicious has not exactly helped Yahoo make money, it is nevertheless a nifty service that still has a huge captive crowd who can be monetizable in other ways.

It has hence come as a huge disappointment that Yahoo may be planning on shutting down Delicious.com. This is courtesy an internal webcast that apparently got leaked to the web by an employee. The screencast has classified several Yahoo properties under categories titled ‘Sunset‘, ‘Merge‘ and ‘Make Feature‘. Delicious – along with other websites like MyBloglog and Yahoo Buzz find themselves clubbed in the ‘Sunset’ category. It is now being speculated that Yahoo may have decided to pull the plug on Delicious – soon.

Yahoo Delicious shutdown

But if the words of at least one Yahoo employee are anything to go by, that may not be the case. Jeremy Hubert, a prototyper for the Yahoo! Search UED Team has noted in a tweet,

Delicious Closing

Yahoo’s own PR statement had rather clearly implied otherwise.

We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate.”

So for now, let’s just hope Jeremy is right and sunset does not mean shutdown.

Categories
Communication Google Yahoo

Number Of Users On Hotmail Vs. Gmail Vs. Yahoo Mail

There has been a lot of talk about Facebook launching their own email service next week. The buzz is already so high that the new “Facebook Mail” is touted to be the Gmail-killer. With Google omnipresent in our internet lives, it may be easily assumed that Gmail is the biggest email service provider at present and the tag “Gmail-killer” for Facebook’s email service could make it look like the service could immediately topple Gmail to get to the top of the table.

But the ground reality is pretty different. Gmail is not the biggest email service provider yet. It never was. A post here on Tech Crunchies last year put Gmail at number 5 in the American market. How are things now? Here are the numbers

1. Yahoo Mail : 72.8 million
2. Hotmail : 48.5 million
3. Gmail : 25.1 million
4. Inbox.com : 7.4 million
5. Me.com : 3.1 million
6. Outlook.com : 1.9 million

Interestingly, the study does not include MySpace and AOL Mail in the list. Ironically, these two services were at number 2 & 4 respectively in the list made last year. Wonder what happened to them!

Categories
Web Yahoo

AOL – Yahoo Merger Rumors Gather Steam

Last month, a report on the Wall Street Journal had claimed that AOL was talking to several investor companies in a bid to take over Yahoo. The bid, explained by some as a possible hostile takeover, was majorly scoffed at, though additional reports from Bloomberg noted that Yahoo was in fact aware of such plans and was mulling ways to thwart such an attempt.

Now these rumors have gathered more steam with a report from Reuters claiming that AOL Inc. is now working out a way to tie-up with Yahoo to consolidate the online advertising business of the two companies.

“These options include merging Yahoo’s and AOL’s online businesses and spinning off Yahoo’s Asian assets to give shareholders back some capital, the paper reported. Another idea would have private equity buy a stake in the combined operations and give a dividend to Yahoo shareholders, the paper said.”

With AOL having reported a 26% decline in their quarterly revenues, it is not clear whether such aggressive attempts from the company management would be approved from the board, but it will be interesting to see how the future shapes up for AOL, and Yahoo.

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Google Web Yahoo

Use Flickr Without A Yahoo Login ID – Use Google Instead

Want to use Flickr to upload and share pictures, but want to do it without a Yahoo login ID? It was not possible until now. But Yahoo has now announced that the company is embracing OpenID in order to ensure more widespread use of their popular photo sharing service. Google is the first company to partner with Yahoo in the introduction of OpenID.

Starting now, you may sign up for a Flickr account with your Google login ID instead. This is interesting because Google runs Picasa, the rival photo sharing service. By letting users access Flickr with their login, Google could be increase the appeal of Flickr over Picasa. Nevertheless, this is a big win for users as they can now get the best of both worlds.

Want to sign up? Click here to get started.

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Microsoft Web Yahoo

Yahoo Search Marketing Transition To Microsoft adCenter Complete

It has taken a long time for Yahoo to completely outsource their search engine and marketing efforts from their in-house team to Microsoft’s Bing team. Nevertheless, it is now learned that the transition is complete. Moving on, all the search results as well as the associated advertisements on the Yahoo portal and partner websites will be handled by Microsoft. An email was sent to Yahoo advertisers announcing them of this development.

Yahoo Bing Integration

The partnership brings a significant level of benefit to both the companies. The total search engine share of Bing and Yahoo combined in the US is close to 30% and this partnership will bring better competition from advertisers and consequently higher ad dollars.

What does this mean to the existing Yahoo advertisers? The company has noted that the search marketing solutions page will be accessible for the next five months during which the advertisers are expected to effect a complete transition to the Microsoft adCenter. Advertisers may no longer use the Yahoo interface to run campaigns.

Categories
Mergers & Acquisitions Web Yahoo

AOL – Yahoo Acquisition : Could This Be A Hostile Takeover?

A report on the Wall Street Journal has claimed that AOL has been working with several investor companies including Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group to discuss a possible acquisition of Yahoo; one of the leading online media portals on the web. According to these reports, the discussions are in early stages with no involvement of Yahoo up to this point.

However, it looks like Yahoo may already be aware of AOL’s advances. Bloomberg has reported that the company has been working with the Goldman Sachs Group to thwart any attempt from AOL for a hostile takeover. The company’s General Counsel, Michael Callahan is said to be heading the takeover-defense efforts.

Late yesterday evening, Yahoo stocks at the NASDAQ stock exchange (NASDAQ:YHOO) soar 5.68% in anticipation of the acquisition. However, it will be interesting to see how the market reacts to the latest news that the Yahoo management may not be willing to budge from their position and are most likely to thwart AOL’s efforts.

Categories
Mobile Yahoo

Yahoo Messenger iPhone App With Video Calling Released

Following up with the announcement last week that a new iPhone app from Yahoo was on the way, folks at Boy Genius Report now point out that this application has now been released to the App Store and is already available for purchase. As already noted, this application brings a significant feature addition that lets users video-call their friends and family over both a 3G as well as a Wi-Fi network.

The new Yahoo Messenger app is one of the several third party apps that have gone one step ahead of Apple’s native FaceTime video calling functionality that offers video calling solely via a Wi-Fi network. With 81 million users worldwide, expect a significant rate of adoption of this new app. As announced earlier, Yahoo is also learned to be working on an Android app that is expected to launch shortly with these same features.

Categories
Software and Apps Yahoo

Video Calling On Yahoo Messenger iPhone And Android App Coming Soon

In an apparent bid to take on Apple’s newly introduced FaceTime video calling feature, Sunnyvale based Yahoo is said to be working on an Yahoo Messenger application for the iOS and Android platforms that will incorporate a video calling feature. This announcement was made by Yahoo’s Vice President of Mobile Development, David Katz recently.

According to Katz, the new feature shall be much more comprehensive than FaceTime. Firstly, Yahoo Messenger already enjoys a more robust user base with more than 81 million worldwide users. Also, by introducing this functionality to iOS and Android platforms, Yahoo could render the service on a far more number of handsets than Apple has since FaceTime is only available on iPhone 4 and iPod Touch at present. Besides this, the video calling functionality is expected to work on 3G as well as Wi-Fi. FaceTime as you know, famously works only over Wi-Fi.

Yahoo will not have it easy though. There are already a number of other VoIP calling applications with video calling feature that have a more elaborate presence on the smartphone platforms. Yahoo, for all its 81 million user base, is still a predominantly a desktop application that is still to see widespread usage on the mobile. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Categories
Mobile Software and Apps Yahoo

Yahoo Finance Android App To Track Stock Quotes Real-Time Releases

Yahoo has released a new Android app for their Yahoo Finance website that lets users track stock quotes in real-time on the move besides being able to manage their entire stock portfolio. This is not the first stock ticker application since similar functionalities are also provided on Android apps from companies like Google, AOL and Bloomberg. However, one additional feature on the Yahoo Finance app is video streaming from the tech ticker section of Yahoo Finance. Early reviews however point out that the video quality has not been entirely satisfactory even over a Wi-Fi network.

Another interesting aspect of the new Yahoo Finance app for Android is the instant results – like Google Instant – on the Quotes search. Users will see instantly generated search results even as they key in the company name or ticker symbol on the Quotes search box.

You can check out the new Yahoo Finance app by using the QR code embedded below. Check it out and let us know your views.

Yahoo Finance QR

[via Mobiputing]