Global Developer Event Promotes Innovation in Digital Media
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today at its Open Hack All-Stars event, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), the premier digital media company and pioneer of open hack events, named "D1W," the 2009 Yahoo! University Hack Day HackU champion team from Carnegie Mellon University, the winner of the inaugural Hack All-Stars competition.
Tasked with tackling the challenges faced by the digital media industry, D1W produced a prototype in just twenty-four hours called Ruum - a fast and easy file-sharing tool that enables users to collaborate in an interactive space, where they can share content, chat with others and leave comments.
"Yahoo!'s dedication to creative third-party developers around the world like D1W who build applications using Yahoo!'s powerful technologies, reflects our belief that by embracing today's thriving ecosystem of developers and publishers, together we can bring more personal meaning to the web for millions of people all over the world," said Kevin Doerr, Vice President of Innovation for Yahoo!. "We provide some of the most popular technologies and tools for the open web - such as YUI and YQL, as well as Yahoo! Search, geo-location and Flickr APIs - in order to help unleash developers' ingenuity and innovation."
Nearly forty winning hackers from fifteen previous Yahoo! Open Hack Days and Yahoo! University Hack Day competitions across North and South America, Europe, and Asia participated in the invitation-only Hack All-Stars event in New York City.
The hack finalists presented prototypes to senior executives from some of the world's most successful media companies, including Yahoo! and Forbes. The winning team received $10,000 with a possible year of incubation at Yahoo!, including office space and technical support from Yahoo! to help bring the exciting product, Ruum, to market.
"Hack Days are the perfect venue to create cool and innovative apps," said Amos Yuen, D1W team member. "The opportunity to focus on a singular problem and bring a solution to life is what hacking is all about."
Following in the footsteps of previous Yahoo! Hack winners, including email photo sharing service Xoopit (acquired by Yahoo!) and Hadoop software developer Karmasphere, the Hack All-Stars winner was selected by a prestigious panel of judges, including: Mike Smith, Chief Digital Officer for Forbes; Shana Fisher from Highline Capital; Raymie Stata, Yahoo!'s Chief Technology Officer; Kevin Doerr, Yahoo!'s Vice President of Innovation; and Steve Douty, Yahoo!'s Vice President of Applications and mobile product development.
Yahoo!'s vibrant Developer Network (YDN) provides a venue for developer communities inside and outside the company to rapidly and collaboratively develop new products that leverage Yahoo!'s best-in-class digital media experiences, along with other Yahoo! services and APIs. Open Hack events offer developers a creative and engaging environment with hands-on access to Web services, SDKs and technical mentors that help them build compelling prototypes that complement the Yahoo! network and have the potential to reach massive audiences.
To learn more about Yahoo!'s Open Hack history, see the Multimedia Gallery below for a visual timeline highlighting the past six years of Yahoo! Developer Network events around the world. Yahoo!'s next Open Hack event will be held in the Philippines this fall.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! is the premier digital media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. And Yahoo!'s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.net) or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.
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Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6862512&lang=en
Contacts
Yahoo! Global Communications
Paul Jarratt, 1-408-349-5527
pjarratt@yahoo-inc.com
or
The OutCast Agency
Melika Mizany, 1-415-345-4779
melika@theoutcastagency.com
Yahoo! Hack Tree (Graphic: Business Wire)