Yahoo goes Open – Y!OS

Yahoo announced yesterday that its OS (Open Strategy) is finally out in the wild – developers can tap into yahoo’s apis and hosted development environment to leverage yahoo’s platform of data and develop apps for the 500 M + consumers that are on yahoo in any given month.

Y! OS

The Y Team launched the Y! OS at the Open Hack 2008 event last week – here is the link to the Yahoo Developer Network featuring Y!OS

When Ari (Balog) CTO of Yahoo, first talked about the Y!OS (short for Yahoo Open Strategy) back in Q2 there were more than a few people looking at it with deep skepticism (to say the least).

It was the days of the microsoft bid and that seemed the only ting to make the headlines.

while all of that was going on, it wasn’t easy for the the Yahoo team. It hasn’t been easy for the past 2 years.

While I write this I think there is still a great deal of skepticism out there but also a growing number of fellow developers, publishers and users that are starting to feel sympathetic to Yahoo’s cause and most importantly starting to see the dormant/hidden potential in Y’s communication and content management platforms attracting a community of 500 M consumers every month.

And let’s be clear, Yahoo is a company and as a company thrives to make profit and foster long term sustainability. However what every Yahoo could tell you is that this company (and the people that make it a living being) is trying its hardest to make an impact to consumers lives in a positive and constructive way – Yahoo means good.

times of change are often (or always) disruptive, but it’s in disruptive times that innovation pops up

Mashable covers the YOS

Disclosure – I am a Yahoo full time employee and shareholder