Tags: BearingPoint, Chuck Elgin

Tags: Game Developers Conferenc, GDC, GDC 2008, PC Gaming Alliance, PCGA, Randy Stude

Employees can collaborate and update projects through Microsoft Outlook. Dashboards with traditional Gantt charts and graphical cost, risk, and benefit views make it easy for management to determine status.

Tags: AtTask, Abraham Knell, @task, iPhone Web App, Microsoft Outlook

Johnson introduces AtTask, the company, and provides details of the new Enterprise version of @task. AtTask also launched Project Daily, a blog with the best thoughts coming out of the project management industry.

Tags: AtTask, Scott Johnson, @task, Web 2.0, Apple, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota

Tags: Dan Sheehan, Winplus, Yada, Bluetooth

Tags: Winston Bumpus, CIM, DASH, SMASH, OVF

Tags: Online speed dating, WooMe, TechCrunch40, Orgoo, Stephen Stokols, Michael Kantor

Maybe it’s not so insane after all…

Macadamia-Stuffed Figs
Serves about 4

6-8 large figs, or more if smaller ones
Macadamia cheese
1C macadamia nuts soaked 1hour or more
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
2T honey or agave syrup
1t vanilla extract
Dash of sea salt
Pecans and additional honey for garnish

Blend all “cheese” ingredients in food processor until smooth and fluffy, scraping down sides of processor if necessary to ensure even blending. Cut figs in half and use small spoon or spatula to mound about 1T of filling (depending on the size of the figs) in each half. Press a pecan sliver into the filling and drizzle with additional honey before serving.

Wicked delicious!

This post has not been approved by the FDA. SuperCandy is not intended to treat, cure, diagnose or prevent any illness, but it tastes great and may make you feel awesome….

Caramaca-Chocolate SuperCandyMakes
8-16 bars Walnut crust layer
1 1/2C walnuts
1/2C dates, chopped
1t vanilla
Dash of sea salt
Caramaca layer
1/4C carob (un-roasted)
1/4C maca powder
3/4C agave syrup or honey
2T cold-pressed flax oil
1t cinnamon
1/2t sea salt

Power chocolate layer
1 1/2C raw chocolate powder
1/2C coconut butter (not oil!)or substitute your favorite nut butter
3/4C agave syrup
1-2T He Shou Wu (add more if you like!)
1t vanilla
Dash of sea salt

Blend all crust layer ingredients in food processor until cohesive, but still chunky. Press into bottom of small loaf pan. In a small bowl, whisk all caramaca ingredients together until a saucy consistency is reached. Pour caramaca over walnut layer and place in freezer while making the chocolate layer. In cleaned food processor, blend all chocolate layer ingredients until a nice fudgy consistency is reached. Press chocolate evenly over the caramaca layer and return pan to the freezer for about 1 hour to firm. Cut into squares or bars and enjoy!

Feel super!

Wondering where to get all this good stuff? Your local health food store will probably happily help you out, or go online to:

One Lucky Duck for raw chocolate powder, agave, and Artisana Coconut butter.

Nature’s First Law for maca and raw chocolate.

Herbal Extracts Plus or Ocean Wave Vibrations for He Shou Wu, aka Ho Shou Wu or Fo Ti.

Tags: shou wu, One Lucky Duck

I’m talking about Barbeque! It’s so crazy it just might work… or is it just a delicious recipe and a great excuse for some bizarre factoids and possibly dismally inaccurate history?

Pineapple Portabella BBQ!
Serves 2-4

Pineapple BBQ sauce:

1C pineapple plus 1/2C chopped for garnish
1C fresh tomato
2T sun-dried tomatoes
2T dates, soaked
1t chipotle pepper, soaked if using whole dried pepper
1t fresh ginger
1t garlic
1T apple cider vinegar
1T mustard
1t nama shoyu or soy sauce
Smoked salt and fresh pepper to taste

Spice rub:
2T paprika
1T chile powder
Pinch of ground clove
Fresh pepper and dash of smoked salt, if desired
2 large Portabella mushroom caps

Blend all sauce ingredients until smooth, adding water as necessary to thin. Cut the mushroom caps into strips, and marinate in the sauce for 2.5-3hours. Remove mushrooms from sauce, reserving the sauce for presentation, then press one side of each strip into the spice rub. Serve mushrooms garnished with sauce and the additional pineapple, sprinkled with remaining spice.

Feel the heat!

Tags: vegan

What we came up with is a bright, satisfying rendition of a classic comfort dish, pasta Alfredo. Our version uses marinated, julienned zucchini in lieu of conventional pasta, and the perhaps surprising combination of cashews and pine nuts to create a rich, delicious sauce.

Vegan Alfredo with Marinated Spagini:
serves 2

Fresh Alfredo Sauce:
1C cashews, soaked
1/2C water
1/4C pine nuts, soaked
3T olive oil
2T sweet onion, chopped
2t agave syrup
1t nutritional yeast
small clove garlic
1/4t sea salt
1/4t freshly grated nutmeg
fresh ground pepper to taste
1 pinch fresh lemon thyme, for garnish

Blend all ingredients in your regular or high-speed blender until smooth and creamy, adding additional water as necessary. Serve over thinly shaved zucchini “pasta” and garnish with additional nutmeg and herbs!

Marinated Spagini:
1C green zucchini, julienned
1C yellow zucchini, julienned
1t olive oil
1t fresh lemon thyme, de-stemmed and chopped
dash sea salt

Julianne your zucchini, combine in bowl with remaining ingredients. Allow to marinate 15 minutes before serving.

Plate your marinated spagini, give it a generous dose of Alfredo sauce, and garnish with fresh lemon thyme and a pinch of additional ground nutmeg. Enjoy!

Tags: Gluten Free by the Bay, Karina, The Gluten Free Goddess, Cooking for Karina, Vegan Alfredo

Years later I’m working the issues out and rekindling the love, this time with healthy raw coconut fat (and here) and sweet, sweet agave syrup. And what better vehicle than some of the delicious white peaches which are so very in season right now? Aromatic arugula and fennel make a simple salad that stands out!

Arugula & White Peach Salad With Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing
Serves 2-4

Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing
1C young coconut meat, or soaked cashews if coconut is not available
1/2C coconut water, or filtered water
1/4C agave syrup
1/4C apple-cider vinegar
2T white onion
1T stoneground mustard
1T poppy seeds
Dash of sea salt

Blend all ingredients except the poppy seeds until smooth and emulsified. Add poppy seeds, blend very briefly to mix.

Pour dressing liberally over 4C arugula, 1 large sliced white peach, 1/2C thinly sliced fennel, and garnish with pecans or pine nuts.

Reserve the extra dressing for another beautiful summer day!

Not content to dine on burgers and ding-dongs, Tanja has created delicious cookies that are ready to travel and pack a nutritional punch! These cookies powered her and the team through their trip to Pixelodeon, when the cravings for road food hit. With healthy ingredients like oats, flax, organic citrus zest and the goodness of almonds, here is an energy-rich treat you can feel good about. Cranberry-Citrus Power Cookies!
(more…)

Tags: Tanja, Pixelodeon, Cranberry-Citrus Power Cookies

Tags: Dream Home, Lisa Quinn

For more information on bees and CCD check out:

Resources page from San Francisco Beekeepers’ Association

Overview of the science, from ScienceDaily

Wikipedia, for a definition of CCD.

Are bees on organic farms faring a bit better?

Five ways to help bees.

Hugg also has many articles on the subject.

And now,

Honey Cream Pie:

Serves about 8

Crust: 2C raw pecans 5 large dates, soaked 1T honey 1T vanilla extract Large pinch each: -Cinnamon -Cardamom -Nutmeg -Sea Salt

Remove date pits, and add all ingredients (except the pits!) to food processor. Pulse until a doughy, but not homogenous texture is achieved, adding a small amount of the dates’ soak water if necessary. Press into pie pan and chill.

Filling: 1 1/2 C cherimoya flesh (about 2 small or 1 large fruit) 1 1/2 C young coconut meat (about 2-4 coconuts) 3 T honey 1 1/2 T vanilla extract Dash of sea salt Shredded coconut and honey for garnish

Peel and de-seed your cherimoya, and add all ingredients to your blender or food processor. Blend well until you have a smooth creamy consistency. Pour filling into waiting crust and chill to firm. Top with shredded coconut and additional honey before serving.

Tags: Freshtopia.net, Colony Collapse Disorder, ScienceDaily

Lemony Spinach Dip:

4C fresh spinach

3/4C raw cashews, soaked

1/4C pine nuts, soaked

2T olive oil, plus additional dash

2T nutritional yeast

1t agave syrup

juice of 1 lemon

small clove garlic

dash cayenne pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Soak nuts 1hr or more. Drain and process thoroughly with the olive oil, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, garlic, cayenne pepper, agave, salt and pepper. Add small amounts of water to processor if necessary, until desired consistancy is reached. Place cleaned spinach in large bowl and massage for roughly 5 minutes with a dash of olive oil and pinch of salt until softened. Add spinach to processor, blending to incorporate yet leaving beautiful spinach tidbits.

Enjoy and Smile! But be sure to have someone check your teeth for green…

Tags: spinach, Freshtopia, Flaxploitation

Related Stories: IntelDesignChallenge

Tags: envador.com, IntelDesignChallenge

Transcript:
Host: Paul Lancour - PodTech
Guest: Frank Buytendijk - Hyperion

Paul Lancour - PodTech
The CIO of an organization straddles two worlds, the technical world and the business world, that CIO looks over a sea of problems in an environment focused on solutions, with the pace of business ever increasing. How can these competing needs ever be reconciled? I am Paul Lancour with Podtech.net and in this series of Podcast CIO Dilemmas, Frank Buytendijk Vice President for corporate strategy for Hyperion says, “If we are to find answers, we need to examine the problems more closely.” He’s distilled this down to four common dilemmas, each to be examined in a separate Podcast.

Our first discussion was an overview of Frank’s thinking on the matter ‘Defining Terms and Outlining Strategies.’ In this second Podcast we focus on the first of the four common dilemmas, ‘Bridging Cost Control and Growth.’

Frank Buytendijk - Hyperion
Well I am happy, we are starting with this particular level, Bridging Cost Control and Growth because this shows exactly what I tried to point out in the introductory Podcast, the first Podcast already, that if you didn’t listen to it by now, I would encourage you to listen first because this is a dilemma that we all know and we have solved in most or are solving in most of our businesses. Today it shows the dilemma based thinking, is not that hard or as scary as you would think because the key to this is, standardization. I haven’t come across a CIO in the last 18 months that doesn’t have significant standardization projects going on. Standardization in hardware, standardization in parties that you work with, such as software vendors and consulting firms and also standardization in business applications and particularly in our markets, and the market of business intelligence and business performance management, standardization is the hot issue that many CIOs are working on, and sometimes also struggling with.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
Standardization is a very difficult thing, I mean if you look at a lot of organizations they have fragmentation in their hardware, infrastructure, databases, applications, they have a portfolio of vendors with which they work. How did organizations become such a fragmented mess in first place, they need so much more standardization.

Frank Buytendijk - Hyperion
Well as always with most things in life, there’s always a multitude of reason why things happen, things coming together. Most our organizations today are trying to centralize a little bit as well as they come from a phase where many of the business processes and strategy implementation were decentralized and if you decentralized IT for instance, that needs to decentralized budgets, decentralized spending and decentralized tool choices, that in combination with, for instance, politics it is not always in the best interest of the people on the middle management to standardize, certainly not when it is about management information because that will bring the one version of the truth that you’ll say we want, but in our hearts fear because, we can’t choose the version anymore that fits our particular situation best.

By blaming “The tools that we have,” the fragmented tools that we have, we can led the advantages of such a fragmented situation. So, it is something that with a political sense, we have grown into as well.

Then there’s other reasons, for instance, emergence and acquisitions, where we need to live with a fragmented portfolio of tools as one part, the often newly merged company have to ‘A’ and the other side have to ‘B’. So, as you can see there’s lots of different reasons, why in many large organizations, there is simply, is a lot of IT fragmentation.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
I think it’s relatively apparent how standardization can save money for an organization but it doesn’t seem as clear how it can also lead the growth of an organization? So, how can end you both?

Frank Buytendijk – Hyperion
Well, indeed it is clear how it saves costs, but indeed leading to growth, perhaps is even more important and the answer to that is, in strategic alignments. If you look at modern management literature and the key to success in today’s world, it is by focusing the resources that we have and distinguish from the competition, one of the key ways of winning in the competitive world is by distinguishing yourself and that’s can only be done by a strong focus and aligning the resources and the people that we have with alignment. In this case I mean that we all understand our objectives, that we understand what is important, our priorities and that we truly understand what our contribution is, to those over all goals?

Now, not only do we need to understand what our contribution is to the over all goal, but also what our contribution is to our peers in the organization. That’s also need to contribute to the same goal because that is when we create synergetic effects. And that is why it is so important that we talk about the same data, the same performance indicators that we used to same definitions, that we used to seeing reference data or in other words master data and that shows why it is so important to use the same business intelligence. If we don’t speak the same language, we won’t be able to focus into align.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
Now Frank do you work for an organization called Hyperion Solutions and we’re spending a lot of time here talking about Dilemmas, but now that you’ve laid out the Dilemma of Bridging Cost Control and Growth, pretty clearly for us. I’m wondering if you can explain to us what solution for business intelligence to this problem might look like. If you don’t mind talking about solutions a little bit.

Frank Buytendijk – Hyperion
That is really funny indeed. We’re talking about Dilemmas and that we shouldn’t immediately jump on the solution, but we should understand the problem at hand first and that comes indeed from a guy working for Hyperion Solutions, but rest assured, we do understand the problems that our customers are facing. The solution over all is indeed standardization, but of course you need to have a standard that is able to cover the requirements of most constituents.

Now, of course everyone always claims to do everything for everyone, but we all know that is sometimes a little bit too much of marketing. In reality, there is no such thing as “the best tool” for everything. So, we need to have a little bit of a portfolio. This portfolio needs to consist of a number of things. First of all, in BI that needs to be strong, information consumption layer. We need to have different ways of disseminating the information to our audience, to users and different ways of consuming it sometimes that requires a dashboard. If you need to have an overview and a glance of the strategic performance indicators in the organization, sometimes if there is a highly analytical environment, where you can slice and dice through more (Inaudible) of the information figuring out, “Why stuff is happening?” In many cases it is a simple, and systemic static report, with everyone gets down little bit of information, then there’s only one particular way of interpreting incident.

The different ways of disseminating and consuming the information, there’s many different ways. However, it is equally important to have a strong information production layer. BI is not about the front end alone, it’s not about the report but what’s in it. If we want to have better alignment and better focus in our organization, we need to be smarter than the competition; we need to have more insights.

So, we need to have a layer in our BI environment that helps us to come to that smarter insight, by producing smarter numbers. Now, of course, there’s a lot of data in our organizations and a lot of smarter numbers that we need to manage. So, there is an information management layer as well and that is where we make sure that we all the use same definitions and we all use the same reference or in other words, master data.

Lastly, and here it comes, I would like to bring it back to the point, where I started. There maybe multiple tools that you need for this. So, you need to work with an open environment. BI is not a silo by nature; it is an integration technology for management information. So, you need to be able in Hyperion’s environment to also have non-Hyperion elements, for very specific, very particular needs that perhaps other users feel that they’re best served with.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
So, I am in CIO and I acknowledge what you say that my organization is fairly fragmented and needed to move to a more standardized organization. Where do I start to do that? This isn’t going to happen overnight I would imagine?

Frank Buytendijk – Hyperion
That’s true and we need to look at human behavior again, is everything in the end boils down to that. There’s basically two major drivers for change which are, pleasure and pain. So, pain for instance, would be the enormous cost of having multiple solutions and not being able to work with each other or meeting the tight deadlines, by having to move data from one system to another, to make sure that we don’t make mistakes, et cetera.

So, creating a standard would really be helpful and it’s easily accepted, if the pain is really high and the deadlines are just incredibly tight, but there is also the pleasure side. If it allows you to collaborate better with your colleagues, or if you are — for instance as a procurement department responsible for strategic relationship with your supplier, and you need to exchange information then it will help you make your targets and make your objectives, to reach your objectives, by using the same information with the stack holders that you deal with.

So, pleasure and pain helps you identify the first areas where you could standardize. Okay, you migrate, you standardize, but there is always purpose of users that perhaps would like to hold on to their own tools. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes also for a little bit of hidden agenda the multiple versions of the truth. In those cases, maybe its about education, trying to sketch the bigger picture, a little bit more of persuasion like, having a corporate process that people have to follow, making sure that those processes grow at the expense of the home grown systems. In the end, sometimes you have to take a little bit more of an in-popular decision and simply just switch old systems off. It is really hard to achieve it, but it is necessary in order to create a standard. Standards are for the greater goods, but are not always recognized as the best solution for every one individual and that is by the way in itself a dilemma that you need to face.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
Yeah. That seem to be a part of all of what you are saying here is that the way to empower individuals in small groups within an organization, is to create standardization across the entire organization and that’s kind of counter-intuitive for a lot people and maybe difficult for them to accept.

Frank Buytendijk – Hyperion
Yes, that’s exactly I think is the dilemma based thinking can help us there. Now, if you look into what dilemmas mean, a difficult choice of some sorts, we need to find ways how to bridge that. In standardization is the dilemma here. The interesting about dilemmas, is the moment you have solved a dilemma by a bridge, in this case standardization, immediately a new dilemma unfolds. Particularly in this case that would be — if we have a standard how will we deal with the very specific functionality and very specific technologies, that are not part of the standard? Will they be custom builds within the standards? Will you allow specially its packaged applications? Will it be a combination of both and that’s indeed is the new dilemma that unfolds. And of course, I do not claim to have all the answers, at least not for you today.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
That is a really good overview of this particular dilemma and some of your ideas around it. So, thanks again for joining us today, Frank.

Frank Buytendijk – Hyperion
You’re welcome this is a lot of fun.

Paul Lancour – PodTech
Getting on the conversation, check out Frank’s blog, at blogs.hyperion.com\frankb. In our next Podcast we’ll examine the next dilemma in the series, Bridging IT Governance and Business Governance. Subscribe now, or go to www.hyperion.com for more information. And thanks for listening.

Copyright ©2006 PodTech.net. All rights reserved. Privacy policy

Tags: Frank Buytendijk, Hyperion

Reporter’s Notes: This is such a big issue the FCC is getting involved. Rich Tehrani’s VOIP blog covers the specifics. Vonage users in San Francisco now have E911 service, the importance of which was underlined by a recent case of a Bay Area man who died after calling 911 from a VOIP phone and was unable to be located in time for the crucial medical attention he needed.

- Michael Johnson

Click here for transcript.

Tags: VoIP, Scott Navratil, Dash911, E911, ISPCON 2006

Related Stories: IntelMobility

Tags: Dan Monihan, Parag Jain, Damien Stolarz, IntelMobility

Dave Winer has an interesting post that refers to a rumor that Wordpress is going to be bundled as well. I wouldn’t be surprised for two reasons: 1) a lot of Yahoo! people that I know use Wordpress and 2) it makes sense to offer choice.

Enjoy the podcast from Anil on their deal. Anil is a really good guy.

Bottom Line: This is good for users. Yahoo! has been working hard for the past year in understanding and integrating RSS into their online business. It’s clear that Yahoo! 2.0 is all about Web 2.0. It’s all about the consumer experience and open media. Yahoo! is leading in this area and taking RSS mainstream and participating in the emerging RSS community. Other key bloggers at the Yahoo! announcement in San Francisco include Dave Winer, Mike Arrington, Om Malik, and Steve Gillmor.

Full Transcript of the Yahoo! Podcast Interview:
Yahoo: Scott Gatz, Sr. Director - RSS & Personalization Platform and Ethan Diamond, Director Product Management - Yahoo! Mail

PodTech: John Furrier, Founder and CEO

John Furrier: Welcome to the PodTech.net InfoTalk exclusive Podcast with Yahoo’s announcement today…with RSS, Yahoo mail integration and alerts. Scott Gatz and Ethan Diamond. Welcome to the PodCast.

Yahoo (Scott Gatz and Ethan Diamond) Thank you.

John Furrier: What is the announcement? You have a lot of moving parts. Basically you are bringing RSS to the mainstream users. Making it easier for consumption and personalization. Getting stuff out there blogs, podcasts etc. What is the announcement about?

Scott Gatz: I’ll take a start John. This is Scott Gatz. When we set out to bring RSS into Yahoo…It has been over two years now. When we first launched RSS on My Yahoo in January of 2004, the goal was really to begin bring RSS to the masses, Making it really easy for consumers get any content they want from all over the Web and bring it all into one place. It has been an amazing progression to see. When we started some of the most popular RSS feeds were things like Slashdot and very tech oriented, but over the years we have seen that general consumers have taken to it, to the point where our research shows that about 31% of Internet users are using RSS whether they know it or not. It seemed like a natural progression. If we really wanted to provide users with what they want in one convenient package, to figure out how we more effectively integrate that across the Yahoo network. Where are the places that users want to see us integrate RSS? That is what we are really excited to talk about today is two new big launches where we have integrated RSS. The first is in our Alerts product. Our Alerts product At Alerts at Yahoo.com allows people to go and sign up and subscribe to real time alerts for all sorts of things — if a stock price reaches a certain limit, if your favorite sports team has won the game, it runs the gambit for all the different types of alerts you can get. Isn’t this a perfect place to integrate RSS? Wouldn’t it be amazing if any RSS feed on the Internet could be made into an alert? What if the moment an RSS feed were updated you can get an SMS alert to your mobile phone, you can an instant message alert in Yahoo messenger or maybe we can even send you an email…as those updates happen. Whether that’s a blog that you track… maybe the blog only posts once every three weeks or so. You don’t want to put that into your aggregate or you don’t want to put that in you’re my Yahoo page, you just want to get an email when that blog updates. WE can help you out there by signing up and we’ll send you that at the moment that it updates. Or maybe you want something a little more real-time. I live in California, so I think about the US Geological Survey. They put out an RSS feed that actually tells me when there are little earthquakes in the area. They actually put out warnings when they think “the big one is coming” I want to know about that and I want to know about that the moment that it happens. So for that alert, I am able to subscribe to that. The moment their RSS feed updates I have it set to give me an SMS message on my mobile phone. So no matter where I am, I able to know “the big one is coming”, not so far fetched.

John Furrier: So from earthquakes to any kind of information that is relevant to any user. Which is hard to figure out, but what you are doing here is you are basically saying to any user, “Whatever is important to you, we will make you aware of it in real-time”.

Scott Gatz: Absolutely. You are talking about the tens of millions of RSS feeds that are now out there having become INSTANTLY “alertable”. You can get alerts on any of them. You give us the RSS URL that you would like us to track, and the moment it is updated we can alert you by IM, SMS or email.

John Furrier: A lot of times when I am looking at blogs…and blogs and news in particular… are really an important part of this new shift with RSS and Web 2.0. A lot of times my life takes me out of the mode of being real-time. It is hard. I miss a lot. How are you guys looking at RSS from an alert standpoint? Do I have to be at my computer? Is this announcement going to be on platforms like mobile devices?

Scott Gatz: Absolutely. I think that is one of the things. There are some times where there is information when you are happy to go to your own personal page and check into it. But other times you want the information to come to you wherever you are at, and that is why we have integrated with Yahoo Messenger. You can get a pop-up while using Yahoo Messenger with the information that, “Hey, this feed is updated”. Or you can get it on your mobile phone via and SMS message. So no matter where you are at, we will help deliver that you in an easy and pretty simple way.

John Furrier: How do you figure out the Instant Messenger piece … with users who just want to talk to each other? Is this going to be interruptive to users?

Scott Gatz: Not at all. It will look just like any other Instant Message that you get through your messenger line. A window will come up and say, “Hey we’ve got a message for you, would you like to read it?” If so, you can click through and go over to the website and read the full information. It is a non-obtrusive way to get that information out to you.

John Furrier: So people can interact better with the content.

Scott Gatz: Absolutely.

John Furrier: Because they are alerted to it. You guys also talk about in the announcement, “Yahoo expands the RSS platform, adds RSS feeds into Yahoo Mail beta and Yahoo Alerts”, which you just talked about. Everyone in the industry knows that you have had RSS around for a while. Like HTTP the protocol that makes web-browsing in the early days of the web, RSS has been in Yahoo, My Yahoo… in with all three Yahoo. What specific extensions are you talking about around RSS? What does it mean to the users?

Scott Gatz: Yes, I think that ultimately different people want to consume content in different ways. Some people feel completely comfortable with having a personalized start page…like My Yahoo… getting headlines, getting their dashboard to their online life all on one page. But other people… maybe they are used to spending more time in their Yahoo Mail experience. We have 227 million unique users that use Yahoo Mail…that used it in the month of October. When you think about that large audience, of folks that feel comfortable in the email environment…we looked at that and said, “Well, if our goal is really to bring RSS to the masses, isn’t that where the masses are?” How can we bring the idea of personally relevant content to them where they are? (Which is email, which is where they feel comfortable.) Ethan and my teams have worked really closely together to actually figure out “how do we do that” and “how do we make Yahoo Mail the place to consume RSS?”

John Furrier: We are here with Ethan Diamond the Product Manager – Product Management for Yahoo Mail. Talk about Yahoo Mail. Everyone knows about mail; they have been using email. Email has been the killer app for the Web for years, but now it is getting more complex. There are news sites and there are blogs. There are RSS extensions. Most people look at their life through the email window (and IM) for the most part.

Ethan Diamond: True.

John Furrier: What are you guys doing with the Yahoo Mail in this announcement that is a little bit different, and how does RSS play in that?

Ethan Diamond: I think there are basically three reasons why you would want RSS integrated into your mail experience. The first one, you just hit on, is more and more people are using mail as the hub of their entire Internet experience. They sit in front of their email clients all day long. They get not just email, but photos from friends. They get favorite bookmarks or links from friends. So having news be a part of that and not making people leave their mail client is a good idea. It is natural. The second part of is that when you read a news story I think the most common activity you perform, besides sort of absorbing the information, is sharing it with friends. If you are inside a web browser it is always awkward to find or email this article link… if it exists at all. If you are inside of a stand alone RSS reader or aggregator, you don’t have your contacts there. Whereas, if you are inside your email client, you have got your entire address book. You can select a post and share it with a friend and have address auto complete, for example. That is something that is definitely part of this release. We can talk about it in a second. The third reason that I would say that it makes a whole lot of sense to integrate RSS right into a middle reader is that it is a familiar environment for people. We are not forcing anybody to go out and download and install a new application in order to get what RSS is and “give it a shot”. They are in an environment that they already “get”; they are in an interface that they already understand. What you will see when this rolls out is that RSS is just another folder in your folder list, essentially. When a feed contains new information it lights up, and you can click on it. You can read posts just like they were email.

John Furrier: So basically you are taking the experience from browsing…where readers are… and then websites (which is mostly blog content and news sites). So much information is coming at people. You are actually integrating into the mail client.

Ethan Diamond: That’s right. We are doing it in a way that I think that actually solves the problem of information overload…rather than making it worse. What we have done is rather than just feeding posts into your Inbox or feeding them into a folder as email, we present it in a way that is really familiar to people (from reading blogs). We show the full post in sort of a “blog view”. We detect whether a feed is a “blog style” feed…in which case we display it in one way. We also detect if is more of a “news summary”… kind of a “headline feed”… in which case we display it differently. That just makes the whole process of absorbing the information a whole lot easier. One other thing that we have done to make it easier to use RSS is … we have in addition to all of the feeds that you subscribe to… we have something called the “meta feed” or feed of feeds. It’s a river of news style aggregators. When you look at the application, all of your feeds are underneath a folder, essentially, that says “All our RSS feeds”. When you click on that it shows you, in reverse chronological order, an interlaced view… a news ticker type of view of each post of each feed that you subscribe to in the order in which it was published. What that allows me to do is now rather than looking at all of the feeds that I subscribe to and seeing which ones have lit up, and have new content… I keep that folder closed and I just look at “what is their content overall”…in all the feeds I subscribe to. I just click on that once and I read my feeds…the ones that I want to share with people. I click on them. I can forward those posts to friends as emails. I can even select those posts and drag them into folders. I can archive them, and then I can switch right back to my Inbox and keep reading my email. It is a very seamless experience. It is very natural for people who are familiar with the email interface to make the transition into this interface.

John Furrier: Basically what you guys are saying is that there is so much online content from so many different sources…there is so much diversity. On one end with the Alerts, you are making it convenient for people to get things in a timely manner… to interact with stuff that is important to them. Then on the Yahoo Mail side you are basically making it easier and saving time for people. People can spend their whole day reading blog posts.

Ethan Diamond: That’s right.

John Furrier: You are integrating into the mail client, because people have their attention there already?

Ethan Diamond: That’s right. They have their attention there and also ,… simply the idea of RSS itself. Instead of you having to go scan the ten websites that you are interested in for new content; it is just going to tell you when those sites publish new content. You end up saving time by not having to go out and find that information.

John Furrier: Yahoo is hardcore on RSS. Now it is going main stream. When can people get the Yahoo Mail beta? Is it available immediately? Where is the user experience going from a Yahoo perspective? Obviously, you are having mobile devices with the Alerts (and being convenient). What is the big picture in terms of where it is going next?
Ethan Diamond: Sure I can talk a little bit about the “when” for Yahoo Mail and then I’ll let Scott talk about the big picture. For “when” … tomorrow everyone who is a user of the Yahoo Mail beta will see RSS integrated into it. The actual date for when the Yahoo Mail beta will go GA, we don’t know, because we are actually in the process of doing a lot of testing of the interface in a lot of different areas. The actual date depends on the results of those tests. As part of this release, we are broadening the beta pool by quite a bit.

John Furrier: Okay great… and Scott the big picture on RSS? Obviously, you are taking something technical and making it main stream.

Scott Gatz: Absolutely. In all the steps we have been making…in the year 2005 we have launched something in the RSS area every month of this year. We see this as a nice way to begin to end the year… to bring RSS to the largest mainstream audience that there is… 227 million unique users on mail. This is the direction we want to be able to see going. We recognize that people consume RSS differently. Some want to read it on their mobile device, some want to read on their on personalized home page….in their Inbox, some want to be tapped on the shoulder when their feed has been updated, some want to read it on Yahoo news, and some people want to search through it. Some people want to do a little bit of all of that. The great thing about Yahoo is we learn about you, we learn about what sources you care about, and we integrate all of those pieces so they come together. If you are at your home computer, your work computer… on your phone, no matter where you are at… that information should follow you. It shouldn’t be tied to one computer… one software application. It should follow you wherever you go. That is the benefit of personalization on Yahoo… the idea that it knows who you are, it remembers those things and makes them easier and easier… as we integrate it throughout the entirety of Yahoo…wherever you want it to be.

John Furrier: We are here at a PodTech Exclusive announcement of Yahoo expanding their RSS platform… adding feeds into Yahoo Mail, offering Alerts… with Scott Gatz and Ethan Diamond. Final word to end the segment here about RSS and mail?

Scott Gatz: I hope that we have been able to layout, and I hope that everyone will have a chance to take a look at the steps we have made to really give a rich, robust experience around the whole concept of RSS. When we explain these benefits to consumers they really love the idea of being able to pull anything they care about all into one experience… the way they want it, when they want it. It has been exciting for us, and we hope that the consumers love it as well.

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