Introducing Yodel Anecdotal
Today is a great day. I get to open my mouth and let you in on the project I’ve been working on ever since I arrived at Yahoo! earlier this summer. I present to you Yodel Anecdotal, the corporate blog for Yahoo!. So I bet you’ve got flashes of Dell’s One2One corporate blog floating around and thoughts pondering whether Yahoo! already has a similar blog. Well I’m here to tell you that Yodel Anecdotal is completely different. Sure Yahoo! has over 10 blogs for just about every Yahoo! product and service, but it lacked one for the company itself.
What Yodel Anecdotal is About
Yodel Anecdotal is not the type of blog you visit to check if there’s a new API for that JavaScript library you so dearly love nor is it the kind of blog you go to get info on the company’s earnings reports. It’s what Yahoo! is all about - the culture, the traditions and some dabbling of current hot topics in the general tech realm. You don’t have to be a Computational Media major at a top 10 public university to understand what’s going on. User interaction is encouraged on Yodel Anecdotal. I would say more but I think Nicki Dugan covered it all when she wrote the about page. If you’re wondering what the name is all about… pick up the feed and stay tuned.
What I Did for Yahoo!
I flew to California thinking I was just going to be a blogger intern, but then again Yahoo! is not your ordinary Internet company. I ended up having a huge effect on the blog’s current state. Taking on the role of lead developer, I transformed mere Photoshop mock-ups into an A-grade browser compatible blog. And for the record, I could have done it in a week if I had a Mac at work. =)
With a Yahoo! Web Hosting Professional server at my disposal, I quickly setup a new WordPress install and began creating a Yahoo!-worthy theme. However, my gig wasn’t just CSS, XHTML and a wee bit o’ PHP. I made many of the small graphics on the site in addition to fixing up many images (stuff like this) taken by an excellent photographer hired by Yahoo!, for the header images. You will soon notice the images in the header rotate (via this script) every page load - there are quite a few header images. Try to guess how many we’re running.. I dare you.
One of the aspects of the site, other than struggling with Internet Explorer, that I spent a lot of time on was integrating other Yahoo! properties into Yodel Anecdotal. I came up with the idea to integrate the most recent 6 photos from a Flickr account we created, which was made in a few minutes thanks to the help of Dave Kellam’s nifty flickrRSS plugin. To seamlessly integrate audio content in future posts I installed a flash-based audio player plugin that does just the trick. I ditched the standard WordPress search for Yahoo! search. Also included were del.icio.us bookmark buttons and Yahoo! 360 blog buttons. In the way of usability, a “Top” button was added to the bottom of each post, as the frontpage will soon become rather lengthy.
In the way of monitoring traffic, readership and growth I convinced Yahoo! to jump on the Mint and FeedBurner (thanks to Don Loeb at FeedBurner for helping us with some nitty gritty feed stuff) bandwagon. Thanks to Steve Smith’s FeedBurner redirection plugin, the end user will almost never notice our use of FeedBurner. For when the traffic gets too great I implemented a modified, Yahoo!-server friendly version of WP-Cache with the help of Van Pham. While I was at it, I installed a nifty Head META Description plugin that does SEO wonders. I also used valid XHTML markup where possible. The last bit of optimization came in the form of going through the theme files with a fine-tooth comb and rewriting dirty PHP calls while removing extraneous ones. Speaking of PHP, did you know the PHP creator Rasmus Lerdorf works at Yahoo! in Sunnyvale?
I could go on all day but that’s seriously enough tech talk, you get the idea. Go check out the site! Oh and please do us a favor by blogging about it!
Looks great. I really like the video tour. You’re lucky you get to be there… looks like a great place to work.
More wp+yahoo! very kewl.
Looks like Yahoo! hired the perfect guy for the job. It’s awesome that they give you all the freedom you need to develop… surprising that they don’t let you use a Mac at work! :(
Very cool beans Paul, glad to see you are doing something productive out in California besides eating pizza and karting. Looks good and I hope you learned lots.
All I know is Paul will not be returning to Georgia if I have anything to do with it. Don’t leave me! Who are you going to smack with that big trout? Seriously, huge debt of gratitude for all your awesome work. And I promise not to call you in the middle of class.
Gah, you guys have sinned! Only launching with one entry? tsk tsk.
Very nice job on that blog. Dell should learn a lesson or two. That video make Yahoo seem like a kick ass place to work. Do me a favor and casually slip my name into the pool for the next round of interns ;)
Nice work as always, Stammy.
Very nice site! It’s a feel-like-home kind of site.
The search is a little weird, though, it couldn’t find “blog” although it’s clearly in the title of your first post.
Great work Paul !!
@Sebastian - regarding the search, it is based on Yahoo! search so the spiders must crawl and index the blog first.. which will take a little while since we just launched not but 2 hours ago.
nice work paul. I like it when the barriers come down and we get to see how corporate blogs are made
Nice work !! I was not aware of the Head Meta Description plugin till I read this post.
On the visual front, I didn’t like 2 things:
1. The header image doesn’t blend well with the title.
2. The orangish background color can definitely be changed :)
I liked the sidebar color though :)
Venu, regarding those two items they are part of the spec and branding so I can’t really deviate much. =/
Nice work Paul!
the end user will never notice our use of FeedBurner
Not entirely true, unfortunately…
Yahoo! logos everywhere on Yodel Anecdotal, total brand overload! That video clip is also a subtle reminder to everyone that Yahoo! has launched a YouTube rival - Yahoo! Video.
I’m seriously impressed by the corporate culture at Yahoo!, if it wasn’t enjoyable you wouldn’t be blogging so enthusiastically about your time there. At least they don’t relegate interns to making coffee! Great job on the blog.
Great job….love the photo selections for the header.
What is that thing at the beginning of the movie…where you kick around the projection on the floor?
Nice work Paul. I’ve been wondering what you’ve been up to over there at Yahoo! The blog is awesome.
Woo. Good Job mate. Glad you got everything working :)
Excellent job Paul.
Nice work paul. I love it when a company gives an intern opportunities like this, and its really refreshing to know that Yahoo is comfortable enough with the talent of their interns to give you the kind of freedom they did. Sweet deal!
Paul, great post! The blog looks absolutely stunning! I reloaded six times and got the same image. But you’re so cocky, there must be more than six header images…
Looks beautiful. Awesome.
Downloading the screensaver and wallpaper now :).
I like the plug on the about page, too!
Paul, I predict there is 45 header images?
looks nice, I don’t think any special skills were needed to make that site though, you are just using the most popular plugins out for wordpress and you talk about them as if you were the first to use them. Wordpress is the real star I think, as with tons of other blogs, yeah I’m just jealous, good job!
Hey great work Paul!
The name is umm… creative?
Good stuff. And yay, the menu looks great ;)
haha
Dimitry
@Ben.. you cheated.
http://yodel.yahoo.com/wp-content/themes/yahoo/images/headers/
Very nice, fresh design and I look forward to read Yodel.
One thing I noticed is that I needed a proxy (I live in Shanghai, China) to see the site. This might be due to the IP it resides on as the other Yahoo properties are available here.
Yes, very nice. I was waiting for your mention of it since earlier today when Matt M mentioned it on his site, and I saw your name on the about page. Glad you are enjoying your working summer out here in California.
I didn’t realise there were rules sorry :P
It’s always good to see companies embracing blogs.
Nice work Paul.
Good work! I like it!
btw, is there anywhere I can get that flash audio player?
I have heard about a summer internship project for HR people in Yahoo. I want to apply for it.