Tag: yahoo

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Yahoo! Pipes — So Cool, it’s Imploding

Yahoo! Pipes launched this week and after a glowing review from O’Reilly seems to have been knocked out by the millions (myself included) who can’t wait play [UPDATE: full recovery].

Shortly after Xeni Jardin declared Pipes “pretty badass” on BoingBoing, it went kaput. Hopefully back soon [back] — Y! Pipes (still in Beta) is a “feed aggregator and manipulator” that makes it easier and more visual to siphon specifically what you’re interested in from a variety of sources and mash it up on a viewable screen.

O’Reilly says:

Yahoo!’s new Pipes service is a milestone in the history of the internet. It’s a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output.

Wow. pretty strong endorsement indeed! Read more.

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Tom Brady Sues Yahoo! for Using Image on Fantasy

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read stuff like this. New England Patriot’s QB Tom Brady, yeah, the Michigan alum and 3-time Super Bowl champ, is suing Yahoo! for using an image of him to promote Y! Fantasy Football “without authorization” in both a print ad in Sports Illustrated and in banner ads on the site.

Having worked with Yahoo! (I am currently a part-time, contract content producer), I find it hard to believe they an unlicensed image would have been used for something as high-profile as Fant. Football. Nonetheless, CNET News reports:

The New England Patriots’ three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback, Tom Brady, is alleging in a lawsuit that Yahoo used his likeness to promote the portal’s fantasy football league without his permission.

According to a report on the news site The Smoking Gun, Brady filed his suit in U.S. District Court and is asking for unspecified damages.

[…]

Brady asserts that Yahoo’s use of his image “connotes a false endorsement,” according to the news site.

The advertisement in question shows several NFL players with their teams’ helmet insignias removed. Among the players are running back LaDainian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers, and New York Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey.

Calls to Yahoo representatives were not immediately returned on Thursday. With more than 4 million users, the portal’s fantasy football league is one of the largest on the Internet.

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Flickr Launches GeoTagging Feature

We knew this was imminent, as it had already been enabled by third party apps, but today Flickr went public with their official Yahoo! Maps geo-tagging mashup! What’s more, one of my fave Yahoo! props — Upcoming — will now be incorporated with Yahoo! Local and suddenly the whole world fits even more conveniently in my shirt pocket. Upcoming declares that their database has just been expanded by 3000%. woah! This is awesome news! For more tricks and tools on geotagging and mashing up your photos and more, i’d recommend OgleEarth’s links page.

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Explosions in Middle East Pop Culture

Two very well-read articles were brought to my attention today, both published in the relatively new World Politics Watch online daily.

Guy Taylor writes of an intense interest in pop culture and reality TV in the face of bombing in Lebanon. He alludes specifically to Star Academy, the Lebanon Broadcasting Corp.’s reality show/contest now in its 3rd season and Super Star, a show allegedly based on the British show Pop Idol.

I heard a song on some NPR program yesterday, can’t seem to dig it up via search, but it was a Palestinian song with words altered in support of Hezbollah / Nasrallah and I can?t get it out of my head. According to Al Jazeera, the number one hit song of the summer on the streets of Ramallah has been “The eagle of Lebanon,” a tribute to Nasrallah. Good chance it can be heard on any of these Gaza/West Bank-based online radio stations.

Juliette Terzieff provides an in-depth update on the latest in Iraqi reality TV. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the U.S. on transplanting notions of Western democracy on the Iraqi public, ?it has been the localized versions of “American Idol” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” that captured the hearts and minds of Iraqis.” Programs including “Construction Contract,” “Fame or Fortune” and “Congratulations!” are aired regularly on Al Sharqiya TV (watch live), a privately owned satellite-based channel.

My question is, when is Murdoch going to announce an initiative to penetrate the markets with his monster MySpace social network?

Here’s 15 minutes of “Star Academy.” More video clips can be found at Yahoo! Video.

Thanks to John Brown for passing along info on these two articles.