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December 13, 2007

Boost Your Blog with Yahoo! Shortcuts for WordPress (Beta)

Writing a good blog post is more than just putting words on paper. It's also about rounding out ideas, opinions and thoughts with content that supports your statements -- be it maps, pictures or links. And sometimes, the hassle of digging up that supporting content is the most painful part. So, to help bloggers address these pain points, we built Yahoo! Shortcuts for Wordpress -- a technology that sits in the background and finds and offers content to help build out your post in real-time. Shortcuts lift the burden of finding additional content and integrating it into your posts so that you can focus on the meat -- the writing.

So, how does it work? Simply download the Yahoo! Shortcuts plug-in and as your typing it will begin to find terms in your post such as company names and tickers, locations, news and product names -- and, with no additional effort, integrates a roll-over or preview badge into your post. For example, "Crater Lake" brings up a map of Crater Lake to answer the "where the heck is that" question and "Citigroup" calls up a dynamic finance chart of the company's stock performance. The product Shortcut (e.g. Nintendo Wii) displays the latest product reviews and price comparisons from retailers across the web via Yahoo! Shopping.

And, because a picture is worth a thousand words we didn't stop there. While these days it is popular to release new features every half hour or so, we decided to hold the product and dive deeper to offer images, as well. Now, under Creative Commons licensing, we'll recommend Flickr images based on the key themes of your post, with proper attribution to the original author of the picture included. For a complete list of Shortcuts available, check out this site.

flickr_shortcuts_editor_3

All of these capabilities are built on the premise of giving the publisher control -- you can decide whether to keep or reject the recommended content and how it is visually presented. To see these controls in action watch this short tutorial.

You can learn more about it at Yodel Anecdotal . And if you're one of the first 500 bloggers to install and use the plug-in we'll send you one of these cool t-shirts.

We'll continue to roll-out new versions to provide an open environment for developers to create their own modules for content within and outside of the Yahoo! network. So, stay tuned for future updates. If you have some ideas on which platforms to support next, let us know in the comments below.


Ariel Seidman & Luke Wroblewski
Yahoo! Search

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Comments

This is a very cool plugin, well done!!!
It'd be great if you developed something similar for leading CMS such as Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, etc.

Thank you!

Posted by: Irlandiani | December 13, 2007 07:28 AM

And don't forget Movable Type. (ugh, welcome to the world of incompatible plugins!)

Posted by: Dave Taylor | December 13, 2007 09:34 AM

very interessting plugin.. i'll give a try.. nice job!

Posted by: ps3szene | December 13, 2007 09:57 AM

My guess is that Yahoo Term Extraction is the backbone of the plugin?

Posted by: z01d | December 13, 2007 10:22 AM

At the risk of being banned from the Yahoo directory ;) how is this any different than the horrible SNAP pages plugin which slows down the blog with horrible mouse over popups?

It seems to benefit Yahoo more than the bloggers, unless you are just a splogger trying to get more outbound links into Yahoo..

Posted by: Timothy Latz | December 13, 2007 11:35 AM

I have downloaded and have a test run on it, it works charm!!

Posted by: zaki blogjer | December 13, 2007 07:52 PM

ps3szene:
Yes-- at the core, a variation of the Term Extraction Service is the backbone.
Thanks,
-Ariel Seidman
Yahoo! Search

Posted by: Ariel Seidman | December 14, 2007 07:00 PM

I am trying to test-run the plugin, but unfortunately, when the plugin attempts to contact Yahoo to search the post, I keep getting the following error: "The Yahoo shortcuts plugin is having difficulty contacting Yahoo"

Any idea what the problem might be, and whether it is on my end or Yahoo's?

Posted by: Chip Bennett | December 16, 2007 08:51 AM

This great plugin, I will try on my blog.

Posted by: Blends | December 16, 2007 07:51 PM

why just US for free T-shirt? Lol, it would be cool if offered internationally

Posted by: mark | December 16, 2007 09:16 PM

I am looking for a way to synchronize among my blogs. I want to post an article on one blog which will be updated automatically to another blog. Any thought?

Posted by: mcling | December 19, 2007 08:40 AM

How would international webmasters benefit? Yahoo! only benefits US people when it comes to earning from sponsored programs.

Is there any gains to webmasters?

Posted by: Vishnu - Internet Marketing QVC Guy | December 20, 2007 12:17 AM

This Yahoo! Shortcuts is great and the Short Tutorial is also informative. but the sad thing is it is only for wordpress blog. it should be compatible with all the blogs.

Posted by: sachin | December 20, 2007 02:13 AM

Hey,

I see it bit differently.....as its more beneficail to Yahoo more than the bloggers.

Let me tell you one of the best thing you can do with it. Prepare a revenue program for Yahoo and Blogger. Means,the blogger who install this plugin, will get into revenue sharing progem with Yhaoo and when ever the user from the blog clicks on the link and goes to yahoo, Yhaoo paid few amount to the blogger. This way the blogger will rally make few money and Yhaoo will also be positive side.

How's that ?????

Srv

Posted by: Sourav | December 22, 2007 06:21 AM

With a small tweak, you can open many yahoo messengers

Posted by: Open Multiple Yahoo Messengers | January 4, 2008 02:47 AM

How can I turn this feature off? It is very annoying to be reading an article and have some unwanted pop-up interrupt you. Is there any way to turn this annoying feature off?

Posted by: Matt | January 7, 2008 06:20 AM

How about languages other than US English? Will it work?

Posted by: alexf2000 | January 12, 2008 09:04 AM

I will try this one and give you my feedback.

Posted by: computers blog | January 15, 2008 11:55 PM

thanks

Posted by: mehmet | February 1, 2008 10:05 PM

This great plugin, I will try on my blog.

Posted by: 2.el | February 9, 2008 02:29 AM

I want to turn this annoying Y! shortcut. I curse whoever made it

Posted by: tony | February 10, 2008 06:31 PM

If you turn off Javascript, Y! shortcuts won't come up, at least for me. Keep in mind other websites may utilize it differently than Yahoo and their pages won't display properly unless Javascript is turned on.

IE 7: Tools -> Internet Options.. -> Security -> Custom level -> Scripting -> Disable. Close all IE browser an re-open it.

Firefox: Tools -> Options... -> Content. Un-echeck Enable Javascript.

Posted by: steve | March 4, 2008 02:57 AM

Great plugin, is it transferable to blogs too?

Posted by: charles chambers | March 12, 2008 04:19 AM

Does the security settings affect it as wont work on my machine.

Posted by: steve jenings | March 12, 2008 04:20 AM

will it become available for all format of blog other than wordpress?

Posted by: John Peters | March 12, 2008 04:23 AM

Great little tool

Posted by: joe johnson | March 12, 2008 04:24 AM

I hate crap like this that forces pop-ups on me. Please help me also get rid of Y! Shortcuts.

Posted by: mike | March 12, 2008 11:05 AM

Great plugin, is it transferable to blogs too?

Posted by: msn nickleri | April 6, 2008 11:41 AM

If you turn off Javascript, Y! shortcuts won't come up, at least for me

Posted by: you tube | April 7, 2008 12:15 PM

How can I turn this feature off? It is very annoying to be reading an article and have some unwanted pop-up interrupt you. Is there any way to turn this annoying feature off?

Posted by: güzel sözler | April 7, 2008 12:16 PM

this is a very great plugin.. thank you very much..

Posted by: Türk chat | April 18, 2008 09:35 AM

Coolest plugin by yahoo ever, I must say

Posted by: Mark | April 27, 2008 12:48 AM

Amazing shortcuts man! Greatest blog on the web i've ever found.

Posted by: 4d scans | May 5, 2008 01:52 AM

Beatiful infos. Thanks.

Posted by: tcs Fiu | May 13, 2008 11:28 AM

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