Life at Yahoo!
Blake Irving Shares His Vision with the SF Chronicle
Posted: 13th of February, 2012Two years ago, Blake Irving had more time to spend mornings surfing on the Malibu coast. That was before Yahoo's then-Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz lured him back into the corporate world, as chief product officer of the Sunnyvale company.
Now the industry veteran stands at the center of the efforts to turn around the struggling Internet pioneer.
For months, the public chatter surrounding Yahoo has focused on executive turnover and exploration of its "strategic options." Those themes continued last week with the departure of four more board members - following Bartz and co-founder Jerry Yang out the door - and the emergence of details about how the company might unload its lucrative stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.
But the real war in the technology space begins and ends with products. Without new ways of drawing users and advertisers, the rest won't add up to much.
That's where Irving comes in. He helped Microsoft build its vast online operations as vice president of the software giant's Windows Live Platform group, before becoming a business professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu.
In an interview with The Chronicle, he laid out his vision for creating "deeply personal digital experiences" that deliver on five points: personal relevance through science and data; premium user experiences; a mobile-first mind-set; social features that better resemble how we interact in the real world; and an "ecosystem" that allows other companies to work within Yahoo's tools...
To read the entire article click here.
To hear what Blake has to say about Livestand and Living Ads click here.
The Yahoo! Logo Gets a Lunar New Year Makeover
Posted: 23rd of January, 2012“Among other things, the Yahoo! brand is fun, and these animations are a representation of that,” says Connor Smith, Brand Marketing Associate in the Global Brand Marketing team.
Connor and the Brand team plan to develop close to 40 animated designs for 2012. The current animation is for Chinese New Year. In this animation a rabbit hops into the scene, pauses, and then bolts out as a dragon walks in.
“The animation is a tongue and cheek reference to the Chinese zodiac- 2011 is the year of the rabbit, and 2012 is the year of the dragon” explains Connor.
Clicking on the animation will bring you to a relevant Yahoo! page, providing a deeper user experience, whether it be more fun or more facts. The Chinese New Year animation will link to a page on Chinese astrology within Shine’s horoscope section. Some of the more cause-related animations, such as the breast-cancer awareness and World Aids Day designs, will provide additional Yahoo!-generated information on the issues.
Click here to view the Chinese New Year logo which appear on Yahoo! from midnight to midnight on January 23rd. Stay tuned for the next animation – this time for the Superbowl -- on the Yahoo! homepage.
A salute to Yahoo!'s iconic co-founder
Posted: 9th of February, 2012What's a Chief Yahoo? It's a guy who dreams, inspires, and rolls up his sleeves while working side-by-side with teams in the trenches. We're talking of course about Jerry Yang, Yahoo!'s co-founder.
Before the wired world was neatly organized and so readily accessible, we actually had to browse page after page of Boolean look-ups to find stuff. But Jerry Yang and David Filo changed all that. The year was 1994, and in a trailer at Stanford, these two guys began creating a guide that eventually became a directory of sites dubbed "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," or Yahoo!. Yahoo! is now a brand known around the globe, and the world's premier digital media company, but only because of the vision and hard work of its two founders.
A few days ago it was announced that Jerry has decided to move on from Yahoo!, leaving it in the capable hands of our new CEO Scott Thompson, Jerry's old pal "Filo," and the 13,000 + Yahoo! employees worldwide.
Jerry, whatever trailer you choose to take your talents to next, we know you'll rock the world with your vision. This yodel's for you.
-- All of Us at Yahoo!
Reposted from Yahoo! Advertising Blog.
Getting to Know Yahoo!'s New CEO
Posted: 12th of January, 2012Here are six fun facts to keep you up to speed on the new CEO.
- The 54-year-old New Englander hails from the small town of Raynham, near the south shore of Massachusetts. He’s a die-hard fan of all things related to Boston sports. Listen closely for his distinct Boston accent, which the Wall Street Journal calls “the best New England accent in corporate America since Jack Welch.”
- Thompson’s father was a small-business owner, which inspired Thompson’s own professional path. He remembers, “What [my father] did and how he did it is why my brothers and sisters and I are where we are today.”
- Thompson is a proud graduate of Stonehill College, a small private Catholic school in Easton, Massachusetts, where he holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and computer science. “A lot of things form the basis of who you are,” Thompson said in an interview, “and I give Stonehill the appropriate amount of credit for helping shape me along the way.”
- The left-handed Silicon Valley resident is married with two sons and a daughter.
- Thompson was the recipient of the 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
- During his time at PayPal, Thompson helped to more than double the payment service’s revenue, boosting it from $1.8 billion to $4 billion.
Quick Quotes From Thompson
- “Pretty religiously, I start [my day] on some Yahoo! site in the morning.” – On his longtime loyalty to Yahoo!.- “I’m from Boston; [we’ve been] the underdogs since the beginning of time. Hopefully that spirit has held through. I like doing complicated, very difficult, very challenging things.” – On his ability to step up to the challenge of becoming Yahoo!’s CEO.
- “I want to return this business to being one of the great iconic brands. I have a core belief that what happens in the next five years — and the next ten — is almost impossible to imagine.” – On his vision for the future of Yahoo!.
Quick Quotes About Thompson
- “When he took over PayPal it was far smaller, much more like an emerging startup that eBay absorbed a couple years earlier.” – Gil B. Luria, Wedbush analyst, on Thompson’s success at PayPal (via Wall Street Journal).
- “Scott brings to Yahoo! a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth — precisely the formula we need at Yahoo!.” – Roy Bostock, Yahoo’s chairman of the board, on the decision to appoint Thompson as CEO.
- “Thompson is a seasoned executive and a smart operator with particular depth in technology.” – Wells Fargo analyst Jason Maynard in a report to clients (via San Jose Mercury News).
Flickr: Year in Photos 2011
Posted: 2nd of January, 2012See the Year in Photos 2011 on Flickr.
Think Fun, Think Yahoo! - HRM Asia Article
Posted: 19th of September, 2011
Jerry Yang’s visit to SG All Hands for Children Cancer Foundation
Posted: 20th of December, 2011
Hair-raising support at Jerry Yang’s Singapore All Hands
Wednesday, Oct 19 2011
An enthusiastic crowd decked out in purple greeted Jerry Yang at the Yahoo! Singapore office as he stepped up to the mike. On a swift trip to the Yahoo! Southeast Asia headquarters, Jerry and Rose Tsou, SVP APAC, took questions from the floor that ranged from Yahoo!’s plans in the region to how purple came to be our corporate color.
It was also the grand finale of “Purple Hope,” Yahoo! Singapore’s CSR project supporting local, social causes. The first project raised funds and awareness for the Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF). The inspiration behind the program came from Yahoo Lorna Tan, who is fighting her own battle with cancer. The Comms and Editorial teams came up with the idea of shaving their heads to raise funds and Lorna enthusiastically joined in.
Ten other Yahoos joined her in pledging hair for the cause and had their heads shorn by professional hairstylists. In their own words, here’s why they chose to lose their locks:
Alan Soon, Head of Editorial and Audience - "This is a fantastic cause to get behind. I'm really proud of Yahoo! for doing this. Spread the word: share your hair!"
Tommaso Del Re, Business Development Director - "I am honored to be part of this great initiative and inspired by the other (more hairy) people who are pledging their scalp for the good cause. Let’s do this as a team. There are many ways you can make this a success, so let’s make it happen!"
Siew Kum Hong, General Counsel - “Letting people see how terrible I look with hair (or at least, what hair grows back), is nothing compared to what cancer patients have to go through. We all know cancer patients, and growing out my hair to shave it off is just a small gesture to show that I care.”
Kuek Yu-Chuang, Regional Director, Policy - "After reading about how CCF is helping families fight children’s cancer, the question for me became, ‘How can I not try to help!’’
Phil Hayward, Mobile SE Lead, APAC - "The CCF does such amazing work that I am happy to be a true egghead for a few weeks."
Maddie Tumkur, Communications Manager - “This is going to be a very humbling moment for me but I hope it will help me, in some small way, to empathize with what cancer patients go through.”
David Jeffs, Head of Insights, SEA - "My eldest son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009 at the age of five, and he smiled his way through two years of intensive chemotherapy. It’s for all those kids who put on a brave face every single day and the hopes of their parents. Barney is now thankfully in remission. I can definitely speak firsthand about the awesome support provided by CCF and their volunteers to not only the kids affected by cancer, but also their brothers/sisters and parents … a truly deserving charity."
And Vikram Bodicherla, Android Engineer, one of our newest employees, also rallied and got his head shaved in support.
Yahoos and other supporters contributed $50,000SGD ($40,000 US) in one week, and the aim is to double it through YEF funding and support. A very special thank you goes out to Rose who made her own generous donation to the cause. Kudos also to Yvonne Chang, VP and MD of Yahoo! SEA, for her supportive sponsorship of the event.
“Purple Hope gives voice to the passion of Yahoos, and several teams worked together to make this a success. Over the week, the site attracted extremely high public interest,” said Jane Prior, Head of APAC Communications.
In My Own Words: Why Yahoo! is Making a Big Difference to Kids’ Online Safety
Posted: 30th of November, 2011As the regional director of public policy in APAC, I have many conversations with regulators on best practices in the Internet space. During these conversations, I am always proud to profile the leadership that Yahoo! plays in the area of Internet safety and the websites we have launched around the world. As a team, there are many of us working hard on this and the results in APAC are world-class.
One of the most important projects that has happened this year was the launch of Yahoo! Safely in Vietnam, to promote online safety among children and young people in Vietnam. The launch roped in Vietnamese celebrity Ha Anh (also Unicef’s local Ambassador) and up-and-coming local boy-band “365” as Yahoo! Ambassadors to help spread the word. Leveraging the Yahoo! Safely website and plans to extend to offline activities such as a “train-the-trainer” programme, road shows and school visits, the initiative is the first of its kind in Vietnam.
Yahoo! is the first Internet company to establish a presence in Vietnam when it entered the market in 2007 and enjoys a very positive brand image. The launch of Safely in Vietnam, to me, was testament to Yahoo!’s commitment and responsibility to the market. Vietnam is a burgeoning new-to-net market brimming with huge potential and business opportunities – and everyone wants a slice. 31% of the population is currently online, and Vietnam has experienced the fastest growth in Internet in the region in the last 10 years. Yet, online safety is largely overlooked.
While online safety is important all across the world, it is critical in emerging markets in Asia as the majority of new users are youth aged 15 and above, where the Internet is an uncharted landscape, not just to them, but to their parents and educators.
Yahoo! has robust online safety programs in every major market. Above Yahoo! Safely which has been launched is in most markets, there are also online safety initiatives in the region outside the umbrella that push strong similarly strong agendas.
In India, the online safety programme led by colleagues from Yahoo! India comes under Learn with Yahoo!, an initiative to educate users about the Internet, and like Vietnam, targets new-to-net users. In Taiwan, a mature market where Yahoo! enjoys a 98% reach, the Internet Security Program for Children aims to educate users as early as elementary school.
Reaching out in India
India’s online safety program kicked into high gear when its school program, upon travelling to 27 schools in Delhi last year, found that while 98% of this school’s growing audience knew about the Internet and considered it a destination for learning, fun and entertainment, net safety was not a feature on the kids’ radar. Awareness about Internet safety was virtually non-existent.
This insight shaped a new focus for the team, who took the safety message outside of the original program framework. Harnessing the reach and popularity of animated cartoon characters, Yahoo! India aired vignettes on Internet safety on kids’ channels such as Cartoon Network and Pogo, with the characters sharing tips, along with an interactive quiz on TV through SMS, to effectively get the message across to kids and parents.
Now, Yahoo! India reaches 82% of the Internet audience in India and is a market where users are growing exponentially. Today, above leveraging kids channels and school programs, Internet safety tips are shared across 2,500 Internet cafés in 50+ Indian cities, helping a brand new audience make smarter, safer choices online.
Keeping Kids Safe Online in Taiwan
In Taiwan, Yahoo!Kimo’s partnership with the government and academy brought to bear its Internet Safety Program for Children in 2009. It is estimated that 1.6 million Taiwanese children under 12 use the Internet. The project addressed kids aged 12-14 and touched on three main areas: managing time spent online, befriending strangers on the Internet and giving out too much personal information.
The campaign started in Taipei with camps, blogs, online material and an ambassador programme, and extended islandwide the following year. Materials were developed for classroom use, and Yahoo!Kimo travelled to 2,650 elementary schools across the country to spread the message. This year, teen idols were invited to speak on the program together with the launch of fun videos and competition. And the kids noticed – making over 100,000 downloads of the material. Yahoo! Kimo’s efforts have seen them win the Taiwan PR Awards- Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign of the Year, and the Outstanding Award – Education, in the annual CSR awards presented by Global Views, a leading current affairs publication in Taiwan.
And the online safety push isn’t over in Vietnam. In July, the PC for Life campaign, in partnership with Dell and Intel, saw 2,000 youth journeying across the country on foot to spread the word on internet safety, and educating villagers along the way on how to use the Internet. The Yahoo! Safely partnership with Unicef also saw an MOU signed, partnering on various children issues.
To say the least, I’m very proud to be working for a company which understands the need to better the community it serves.
Kuek Yu-Chuang, Yahoo! APAC’s regional director of public policy
Yahoo! Safely around the world - click the link for your region to learn more:
Argentina : Asia : Australia : Brasil : Canada : Chile : Colombia : Deutschland : España : France : 香港 : India : Indonesia : Italia : Malaysia : México : الشرق الأوسط وإفريقيا : New Zealand : Perú : Philippines : Québec : Singapore : 한국 : 台灣 : ประเทศไทย : United Kingdom : United States : en Español : Venezuela : Việt Nam
Yahoo! Pride - It Gets Better
Posted: 11th of November, 2011Our fellow Yahoos share a message of hope with LGBT teens.
Guest lecture session at NTU’s Executive MBA class – The mechanics of Search Marketing
Posted: 10th of January, 2012Guest lecture session at NTU’s Executive MBA class – The mechanics of Search Marketing
7 Sept 2011
(Southeast Asia’s Search Marketing Senior Project Manager, Ryan Wen talks about his one-time experience as a Guest lecturer at the Nanyang Technology University Executive MBA class recently.
Q: What was the objective and topic of the guest lecture session?
A: We wanted to reach out the MBA community and talk about the things we live and breathe everyday at Yahoo! Search Marketing SEA such as media trend, online universe, the SEA market profile and the Search Marketing business model. Attendee turnout was very encouraging; 55 students from the Asia Pacific region turned up; the topic was ‘Search Marketing for Technopreneurs’.
(Note: The Nanyang Technology University Executive MBA class is a one year full time course where the students go through courses in Marketing, Human Resources, Intellectual Property, Innovation and Industry Design.)
Q: Tell us about yourself; why do you think you were chosen to present the topic?
A: I have been in the Search Marketing business since Summer 2004, when I joined Overture Taiwan as a member of the market launch team. Over the years, I have been involved in various roles and positions which allowed me to observe and learn various aspects of the search marketing business. Eventually, I took on a training lead (internal and external) role for Search Marketing in Taiwan. I also conducted market launch training for SEA YSM back in 2008.
Q: Any personal takeaways from the session?
A: It was great to see interest and curiosity in online advertising and search engine marketing. Since these were future technopreneurs, there were lots of questions on the cost-per-click concept and pricing model, advice on getting started with online search marketing campaigns. It was certainly a culturally diverse group of languages and mindsets; it would have been great if there was more time to also present in Mandarin as well, as the course was delivered entirely in English. Also, including global/regional market trend findings and successful case studies from known local brands would have been good to highlight our business model and concepts clearly.
Yahoo! Mail – Coming to a Language Near You
Posted: 8th of December, 2011Yes, that’s right – today we’re announcing the international expansion of Yahoo! Mail to 27 new markets and 22 new languages. 700 million of you have already come to know and love Yahoo!, Yahoo! Mail and all of the different experiences we have to offer, but we have been focused on extending Yahoo! to even more of you worldwide.
With today’s news, Yahoo! Mail is now in more than 70 markets and 46 languages worldwide. Moreover, by adding these languages and markets today, we’re now able to reach a potential 226 million new people across every single continent. Or to put it another way, with a push of a button (or two) approximately 90% of the world’s Internet population can now use Yahoo! Mail in their native language.
Some of the new languages and markets coming on board:
- Ten new languages in Asia, including eight new languages in India alone.
- Twelve new languages in Europe, including Serbian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Croatian.
- Several new markets around the globe, including South Africa, Belgium, Austria and Portugal.
James Carroll, SVP Global Products Development
Ad Age Honors Ross Levinsohn for Creativity
Posted: 1st of December, 2011Yahoo!’s EVP of the Americas named one of world’s leading media strategists
Just twelve months after joining Yahoo! as the Executive Vice President of the Americas region, Ross Levinsohn has been recognized by Ad Age as a 2011 Media Maven. The annual Media Mavens awards fete the world's leading media strategists for their creative thinking, leadership and innovation. At an event in New York today honoring the award winners, Levinsohn was in very good company with honorees from brands like Apple, P&G and Warner Bros.During his year-long tenure, Levinsohn has created a strong track record for championing unique content experiences and new partnerships that benefit Yahoo!’s consumers and advertisers. He’s committed to pushing the boundaries and ensuring Yahoo!’s continued leadership position as the premiere digital media company. Here’s a look back at some of the company’s key accomplishments under Levinsohn:
• Yahoo! remains the top-ranked site in an amazing 13 U.S. categories, including sports, mail, news, finance, entertainment-news, shopping, TV, real estate, autos, instant messaging, and photos.
• The Royal Wedding was the largest video event in Yahoo!’s history, surpassing the funeral of pop star Michael Jackson by 21 percent, and totaling 27 million video streams and 2.6 million live video streams over the 24-hour period from Friday to Saturday.
• The death of Osama bin Laden marked new traffic records on Yahoo! News, surpassed only by March’s earthquake in Japan. More than 45 million pages on Yahoo! were viewed about bin Laden’s death those two days—more page views than these Websites got for the entire month: NPR, Salon, TechCrunch, The Atlantic, or Google Reader.
• Yahoo! had all the top 10 original shows on the Web in August. Calling Yahoo! "the broadcast network of the digital age," Yahoo! Media Network senior VP Mickie Rosen announced a slate of eight new video series aimed at the 13 million women who watch Yahoo! video.
• To commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Yahoo! partnered with National September 11 Memorial & Museum (9/11 Memorial) and co-produced a memorial microsite which included tools for users to tell their own stories.
• Yahoo! and ABC announce a new partnership that will bring both consumers and advertisers a treasure trove of premium video content.
• Yahoo! is named the official, and only broadcast destination for “A Decade of Difference” –a concert celebrating the philanthropic work of President Clinton and The William J. Clinton Foundation, featuring an all-star group of the most influential and socially responsible artists, including Bono and Lady Gaga. Yahoo!’s Decade of Difference microsite received more than 200 million page views.
•Yahoo! announced a partnership with Microsoft and AOL to offer each other’s premium non-reserved online display inventory to their respective advertising customers.
• Yahoo! was the official live-streaming partner of the premier of “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1”, churning out wall-to-wall coverage of the scene at L.A. Live’s Nokia Theater, including star arrivals and fan reaction. The live stream was syndicated internationally, ensuring that fans all over the world could get a glimpse of the event. An exclusive “Breaking Dawn” trailer on Yahoo! shattered records with 2.9 million streams in a single day.
In an interview earlier this fall, Levinsohn told Ad Age, "I don't want to look back and say, 'Gosh, we had a chance to be innovative and bold, but we just felt comfortable and scared to do something different.'"Today’s award and the list of accomplishments above indicate he doesn’t need to worry about that.
Yahoo! Launches Livestand!
Posted: 2nd of November, 2011Visit Livestand on Facebook!
Hear from one of the Livestand Engineers
Like most engineers, Daivak Shah likes building things from the ground up. So naturally, when presented with the opportunity to help create Livestand for Yahoo!, Daivak jumped at the chance. The Senior Engineering Manager for Livestand describes the initiative a “content eco-system,” weaving together the vast amount of content that Yahoo! has at its disposal into a rich, custom-tailored experience for consumers, advertisers and publishers. Being able to take an active role in building this game-changing user experience has kept Daivak invested in Yahoo! “I feel passionate about what I’m building and I’m enjoying what I’m working on.”
Opening Eyes to Accessibility
Posted: 31st of October, 2011Victor runs Yahoo!’s accessibility program. He helps make it easy for people with all kinds of disabilities to use our sites. When I first met Victor, I had the same naïve reaction most people have – dumbfounded by how he could crank open his laptop and be fully self-sufficient reading email and surfing the web. That’s because I was clueless about all the remarkable ways that people with disabilities use technology.
Victor’s made it his mission to educate our designers and engineers, helping change their assumptions that accessibility somehow requires sacrifice or compromise. On the contrary, Victor argues that accessible design is better for everyone. Just as curb-cuts were designed for wheelchairs, they’re also a great convenience for strollers, luggage and shopping carts, right?
But driving the point home sometimes means making someone walk a mile in his moccasins. Enter the Yahoo! Accessibility Lab, which has been toured by more than 75 product teams to date. It’s filled with a wide array of assistive technologies – screen readers, onscreen keyboards, interactive Braille displays, etc. When Yahoos arrive, they’re told they’ve just had a stroke and can’t type with their fingers. They’re given a rubber ball and asked to type their name. Um… Next, they’re fully paralyzed. “OK, try to send an email.” Uh… After they’re introduced to the technology solutions, they watch videos of disabled people in action.
All this leaves developers making accessibility a goal before they write their first line of code. It’s why anybody can access rich features and tools on products like Yahoo! Sports, My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone. It’s why third-party websites that are inaccessible in their own right are now entirely accessible via the new “favorites” area on the Yahoo! Homepage. Victor has helped Yahoo! make enormous strides since joining us four years ago, but there’s still more to come.
We spent some time following Victor with a video camera to not only understand his work, but to appreciate his daily experience. Commuting by train. Playing guitar. Making lunch with his wife Karo Caran, a fellow student from the Overbrook School for the Blind. We watched as sighted people had their first awkward interactions with him. He laughs when he describes how often people raise their hands when he asks questions during his new hire orientation briefings. Well-meaning commuters sometimes escort him to the wheelchair zone on the train platform. It took me a while to realize he’s not offended by questions like “Did you see my email?”
Spend any amount of time with Victor and you realize that his blindness doesn’t really make him all that different from anyone else – except that his computer talks to him. Really, really fast.
Southern California Hack Day 2011
Posted: 16th of September, 2011
Originally posted on the WIT blog. By Karen Bruner.
Yahoo! has been hosting company-wide Hackdays two or three times a year now for several years, and while Yahoos in the Southern California offices were welcome to work on hacks, they didn't have the support of an organized local event. That changed for Summer Hackday 2011. The SoCal chapter of Yahoo!'s Women in Tech group, with funding from the Yahoo! Developer Network, put together a great environment for local hackers to collaborate and concentrate on their hacks.
Prospective hackers listen to pitches over pizza
A week before Hackday, potential hackers came together to pitch ideas and find interested hackers. Hacking wasn't limited to engineers who fit the traditional definition of computer hacking. The Southern California offices have a large proportion of people in the advertising and business side, but they still have many of the necessary hacking skills: ideas, aesthetic input, and enthusiasm.
By the time Hackday rolled around, 19 hackers worked on several local projects that had come together. Hacks ran the gamut from ideas that could someday appear on the front pages of Yahoo!'s sites to internal tools that would make the behind-the-scenes run better. While most hackers were local to the Burbank office, Yahoos from the Santa Monica office also came to join the hacks. WIT volunteers kept them energized with drinks, munchies, and pizza.
For another first, the teams in Burbank got to present their hacks in the Friday afternoon demos via teleconferencing with Hackday HQ in Sunnyvale. Several dozen people, hackers and supporters alike, crowded in a boardroom over pizza and beer to watch the local demos. The enthusiasm and excitement from everybody was tremendous. Second-time Burbank hacker Srikanth Bangalore said this was a big improvement over his first Hackday, when he worked from his desk and had to record his demo so it could be replayed in the Sunnyvale demo session. Doing the demo live and having an energetic audience made for a very different experience.
A first: Burbank Hackday demos teleconfereced live with Sunnyvale
Mariena Quintanilla's hack was related to her day-to-day work, a monitoring tool she had been needing for awhile but hadn't had time to work on. Hackday gave her the perfect chance. She found another would-be hacker to help out, and her tool will have an immediate impact.
With one successful Southern California Hackday under WIT's belt, the plan is to make this a regular event, allowing local Yahoos to tap their hacking talent more easily, which can only benefit Yahoo! as a whole.
