next*

Wow, this place is nice! Everything's so new and shiny, it won't take us long to scuff it up.

Why am I wandering the halls of this fancy new place called Next? Well, I wanted to tell you about this great program I run here, but first, let me tell you a little about my myself.

My name is Arlo Rose , and I came to Yahoo! just over two years ago when my company Pixoria was acquired for its flagship product Konfabulator. And really, by flagship, I mean that it was our only product. But it was an awesome one. So awesome that the concept behind it is now an integral part of both major operating systems (Mac and Windows) and is used all over web pages to convey simple, highly contextual, information to people. Konfabulator ran files called Widgets. Sound familiar? I know, they’re everywhere now! Makes me proud.

I’ve done a bunch of stuff since coming to Yahoo!, but my current project is running this thing called Hack. Hack is a program that's all about letting people who like to tinker with code have a voice outside their day-to-day duties.

The basic concept is this: take 24 hours to try and realize whatever you want to build; show it in a science fair setting and let your peers vote on which they think is the best; take the top 25 of those, show them to some execs and well respected peers and let them choose the top three.

Here’s where the Next piece of the equation fits in--we now have a place where we can share winning hacks. It’s an important piece of what Next is going to be about. When a project that’s able to be publicly consumed has had a little bit of polish applied, we’ll publish it on Next while we work out its place in the big picture. This is great because the developers get their work out to the world, and you guys, you know, get to play with this cool stuff we develop out of passion. You can’t beat that.

(Photo from Chad Dickerson )

Popularity: 12% [?]

The world is a big place. There are thousands of maps out there that provide unique details about any given destination. MapMixer is a new site that combines those maps with Yahoo! Maps to give you a better view of the world.

It's easy to mix your own map. Upload an image of your map, use our layering tool to align it with Yahoo! Maps and we'll do the rest! Your map will have all the features of Yahoo! Maps (zooming, panning). You can also syndicate it on your own site or blog.

Who built it

• Adam Chang
• Nimit Maru

What people are saying

Launch: Merge Your Map on Yahoo Maps with MapMixer, Lifehacker, Gina Trapani
"Really neat tool for folks who don't want to have to draw a whole new map when they've got one already—just scan and upload to MapMixer and you've got it online."

Yahoo Launches 2 New Hacks - Interview with Bradley Horowitz from Yahoo, Read/WriteWeb, Sean Ammirati
"The user simply finds a couple intersection points on both the map and his/her image and then the system automatically morphs them together. In our interview, Bradley explained the process as being 'like a big sheet of rubber, the map is kind of stretched and rotated, and then applied to the Yahoo Map.'"

Yahoo MapMixer: The easiest way to add an overlay, Ogle Earth, Stefan Geens
"MapMixer lets you do three things that Google's tools don't... I can't help wishing that maps made with Yahoo MapMixer were exportable as a KMZ file today, so I could use this tool to create overlays I can show in a KML-savvy client of my choice."

Popularity: 13% [?]

Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web.

Like Unix pipes, simple commands can be combined together to create output that meets your needs. With Pipes, you can:

• Combine many feeds into one, then sort, filter and translate it.
• Geocode your favorite feeds and browse the items on an interactive map.
• Power widgets/badges on your web site.
• Grab the output of any Pipes as RSS, JSON, KML, and other formats.

For the latest news, read the Pipes blog.

What people are saying

Yahoo Pipes For The IPhone, Wired Blog Network: Compiler, Scott Gilbertson
"Yahoo Pipes recently released a brand new iPhone interface and some new ways of searching through the various Pipes to find ones that interest you."

Yahoo! Pipes Adds Geo Data Support, O'Reilly Radar, Brady Forrest
"Yahoo! Pipes, the graphical, web-based RSS re-mixer (Radar post), has significantly increased its geo support. They now provide a map output that plots your data on a Yahoo! supplied map. Pipes will also export geocontent in KML."

Pipes and Filters for the Internet, O'Reilly Radar, Tim O'Reilly
"Yahoo!'s new Pipes service is a milestone in the history of the internet."

Annotate the web, then rewire it, Jon Udell
"It delights me! Much more importantly, I think it could ultimately appeal to non-technical folks, but there are some conceptual barriers to overcome. The concept of “wiring the web” is one of those, but not the first one. The dominant way in which most people will “program” the web is by writing metadata, not code, and we’ll need an interface as friendly and powerful as Pipes to help them do that."

Yahoo Pipes and the future of composite content, Software as Services - ZDNet, Phil Wainewright
"It's winning attention because it answers a huge unmet need to filter, transform and reorder the raw information streaming out of RSS feeds all over the Web."

Popularity: 11% [?]