Create enhanced results on Yahoo! and Facebook with Share markup

Yahoo! announced support for enhanced search results last week based on Facebook Share and RDFa markup. Website owners can add a few meta tags to their pages to boost click-throughs from a more visual Yahoo! Search result and east the process of sharing a link on Facebook at the same time. In this post I will cover the major categories of enhanced share types — audio, images, video, news, blogs, games, documents, and multimedia — and walk through how site owners can stand out on shareable platforms.

Facebook v. Power Ventures

Facebook filed eight legal complaints in United States federal court against Power Ventures, operators of social aggregator Power.com. Facebook claims Power collected Facebook usernames and passwords, stored Facebook data on their servers, used the Facebook trademark without license, sent e-mails posing as Facebook, and knowingly circumvented Facebook’s attempts to block access.

2008 in review: iPhone apps

Content developed exclusively for the iPhone helped web publishers rethink content display beyond the desktop browser. Reimagining web content for small screens with bandwidth, latency, and interaction constraints provided publishers with an introduction to widget concepts and a broader web strategy. iPhone OS 2.0 ignited new mobile development in 2008, which should carry over to new platforms in 2009.

Rewriting Twitter for web best practices

Last week I decided to rewrite the Twitter.com front-end on Google App Engine to incorporate modern front-end programming best practices, exceptional performance, and establish a solid platform for further development. TwitterFE.com is a fully-functional read-only clone of Twitter.com designed to make your web browser sing. I created the site as an example of web development best practices anyone can integrate into their web presence.

Syndication and Widgets Primer

Today’s publishers need to think beyond the fixed location of their website and fully integrate with the large hubs of user activity on the desktop, mobile phone, social networks, blogs, and web pages at large. Syndication and widgets power new opportunities to carry content beyond the walls of a single site and into some of the largest brands in the world yet some publishers still haven’t gotten the message. I recorded a 1-hour video presentation earlier this week to better explain the syndication and widget landscape to web publishers.

Yahoo! Open Strategy launch

On Tuesday Yahoo! launched its Open Strategy, exposing Yahoo! account data and social connections to third-party developers. Yahoo! Open Strategy is the third pillar of faith announced by CEO Jerry Yang last year during the company’s rebirth. Y!OS is the new glue connecting the next versions of Yahoo!’s own properties and will eventually power more relevant advertising across the network. In this post I will provide an overview of the new Yahoo! services and its impact on both Yahoo! and third-party developers. Yahoo! Open Strategy is one of the keynote presentations at Widget Summit next week.

Intel and Yahoo! announce Widget Channel for HDTV

The Internet is coming to your TV, reclaiming your split attention span from the other gadgets around the house. Intel announced its latest effort to power your living room yesterday with new media processors, reference designs, and software stacks that may eventually find their way into the cable boxes, Blu-ray players, and home media centers of 2010. Intel partnered with Yahoo! to deliver Internet-connected widgets, advertising, and content to potential partners with a software stack branded The Widget Channel. What new opportunities are available inside the Widget Channel platform? When is the right time to implement?