We have some exciting news to share. Starting today, you’ll be able to add a cool new kind of content to your My Yahoo! page. We call ‘em Open Apps (or “apps” for short), but you may also know them as “widgets” or “gadgets”. There are a few things that make Open Apps especially exciting:
• Open Apps give you more interactive tools for your My Yahoo! page. Any developer with a great idea can create a useful Open App for you to add to your page. For example, our friends at LabPixies have created a nifty Calorie Calculator app that lets you set a daily calorie target and then make a note of the things you eat during the day (try it out).
• Open Apps can help you keep up with the people you care about. As you set up your connections with friends and family through your profile on Yahoo!, these new apps can use those connections to enrich your My Yahoo! experience. For example, the fine folks at Flixster have created Flixster Movies, which gives you all the info you’d expect for top movies and new releases, plus a view of your friends’ ratings & reviews. You can even see which movies your friends want to see!
• Open Apps can connect you to people with similar interests. Let’s say you’re a diehard fan of the Green Bay Packers or the TV show “The Office”. Question: Where do you go to find other Cheeseheads or show off your Dunder Mifflin trivia knowledge? Answer: Open Apps. For example, our partners at Watercooler have built a whole bunch of “Addicted to…” apps for popular TV shows and a complete series of “Fans” apps for NFL and NBA teams. Each of these apps gives you access to episodes, quotes, trivia, quizzes, discussion – pretty much everything you could ask for when you want to immerse yourself in your favorite obsession.
These are just a few examples of the Open Apps that are available today. You’ll be able to find more by browsing the new Open Apps category in our content gallery or by searching in the gallery for “Open Apps.” You can also give and get apps from friends. To share an app, click on the “Options” menu in the app and choose “Share this application”. Over the next few months you’ll start seeing messages in more places around Yahoo! that say things like “James is now using Addicted to The Office”– click on one of these to get the app for yourself.
Before I go back to playing, err…working with apps, I should tell you that each app on your My Yahoo! page has a corresponding full-page view where you get access to even richer functionality for that app. Sometimes, when you interact with an app on your My Yahoo! page, it will take you to its full-page view. You can go to the full-page view by clicking on the app’s “Options” menu and then choosing “Zoom In”. To get back to My Yahoo!, click on the “Options” menu and then choose “Zoom Out”. If you end up on the full view of an app that you’ve never added to your My Yahoo! page, just look for the “Add to My Yahoo!” link towards the top right.
That should be enough to get you started with Open Apps. Remember, today is only the beginning—in the coming weeks and months we expect hundreds, even thousands, of open apps to become available for you to add to your My Yahoo! page.
Oh, if you’re a developer and would like to create your own app to share, see our guidelines on the Yahoo! Developer Network.
–james
My Yahoo! Product Lead