Lessons Learned - Building YDN

Lessons learned - Building the Yahoo! Developer Network Dan Theurer Developer Relations Conference 2009

Yahoo! Developer Network

Joined at incubation

4 years

Technical Evangelist

Manager Partner Integration

Hack Program

eBay Developer Program

Technical Evangelist

About Me

10 min YDN Update

What history tells us

Key learnings

The four pillars

Key takeaways

What are we going to cover

10 min YDN Update

Yahoo Developer Network (YDN)

Open Source

Developer Tools

Data Services

Yahoo! Open Strategy (YOS)

YQL Code Samples

Open Strategy :: Applied

YUI

Hadoop

Apache

PHP

Perl

MySQL

YDN :: Open Source

YSlow

Pipes

Blueprint Mobile Widgets

YDN :: Developer Tools

BOSS

Address Book

Flickr

YDN :: Data Services

YOS :: Technology Stack

SQL-like syntax

Allows you to query (SELECT), filter (WHERE) and join (IN) data across WebServices.

Self Describing - SHOW, DESC table

Public / Private Data

Bindings for many YDN APIs

Can query external structured data (USE)

http://developer.yahoo.com/yql

Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) - SELECT * FROM internet

<query yahoo:count="46" yahoo:created="2009-02-20T08:16:03Z" yahoo:lang="en-US" yahoo:updated="2009-02-20T08:16:03Z" yahoo:uri="http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/yql?q=show+tables"> <results> <table>atom</table> <table>csv</table> <table>feed</table> <table>flickr.photos.exif</table> <table>flickr.photos.info</table> <table>flickr.photos.interestingness</table> <table>flickr.photos.recent</table> <table>flickr.photos.search</table> <table>flickr.photos.sizes</table> <table>flickr.places</table> <table>flickr.places.info</table> <table>geo.places</table> <table>geo.places.ancestors</table> … </results> </query YQL :: SHOW tables

<query yahoo:count="1" yahoo:created="2009-02-21T01:41:28Z" yahoo:lang="en-US" yahoo:updated="2009-02-21T01:41:28Z" yahoo:uri="http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/yql?q=desc+flickr.photos.search"> <results> <table name="flickr.photos.search”> <request> <select usesRemoteLimit="true”> <key name="machine_tags" type="xs:string"/> <key name="radius_units" type="xs:string"/> <key name="safe_search" type="xs:string"/> <key name="privacy_filter" type="xs:string"/> <key name="contacts" type="xs:string"/> <key name="tags" type="xs:string"/> <key name="place_id" type="xs:string"/> <key name="text" type="xs:string"/> … </select> </request> </table> </results> </query> YQL :: DESC flickr.photos.search

<query yahoo:count="6" yahoo:created="2009-02-21T02:09:55Z" yahoo:lang="en-US" yahoo:updated="2009-02-21T02:09:55Z" yahoo:uri="http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/yql?q=select+*+from+flickr.photos.search+where+user_id%3D%2228569531%40N00%22+and+text%3D%22jump%22+limit+6"> <results> <photo farm="4" id="3154107557" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="28569531@N00" secret="6f22e677c3" server="3101" title="Jump - Fremont Older"/> <photo farm="4" id="2563123589" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="28569531@N00" secret="7811c91934" server="3087" title="Jump"/> <photo farm="3" id="2159479534" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="28569531@N00" secret="785e671cd4" server="2080" title="Hollywood - Jump - Dan"/> <photo farm="3" id="2066431773" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="28569531@N00" secret="c61604d090" server="2208" title="JUMP!"/> <photo farm="2" id="1304849768" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="28569531@N00" secret="7271c8f9b3" server="1233" title="Testing the suit"/> <photo farm="2" id="1178261094" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="28569531@N00" secret="3dac28807f" server="1241" title="Jump, jump!"/> </results> </query> YQL :: SELECT * FROM flickr.photos.search WHERE user_id="28569531@N00” AND text="jump” LIMIT 6

Download the SDK

http://developer.yahoo.com/social/sdk

Unzip yos_php_sdk-1.1

Get a Developer Key

http://developer.yahoo.com/dashboard

Start to write some code

Developer Key / PHP SDK

<?php // Include the PHP SDK for YSP library. require_once("yosdk/lib/Yahoo.inc"); // Define values for keys required for authorization define(CONSUMER_KEY,"dj0yJmk9ZDNwaXdQSEZ…j"); define(CONSUMER_SECRET,"37fe717538e0598e6c70d4262…"); // The YahooApplication class is used for two-legged authorization, which doesn't need user authorization. $two_legged_app = new YahooApplication(CONSUMER_KEY,CONSUMER_SECRET); // Create queries for Flickr $yql_request = 'select * from flickr.photos.search where user_id="28569531@N00" and text="jump" limit 6'; // Make the request $results = $two_legged_app->query($yql_request); $photos = $results->query->results->photo; // Build the output HTML foreach($photos as $k=>$v) { $imgs .= '<img src="http://farm' . $v->farm . '.static.flickr.com/' . $v->server . '/' . $v->id . '_' . $v->secret . '_m.jpg" alt="Image' . $k . '"/>' ; } echo "<html><body>" . $imgs . '</body></html>’; ?> YQL :: 2-legged OAuth – PHP SDK

YQL :: 2-legged OAuth – Result

<?php // Include the PHP SDK for YSP library. require_once("yosdk/lib/Yahoo.inc"); // Define values for keys required for authorization define(CONSUMER_KEY,"dj0yJmk9ZDNwaXd…j"); define(CONSUMER_SECRET,"37fe717538e0598e6…"); $session=YahooSession::requireSession(CONSUMER_KEY,CONSUMER_SECRET); // Define YQL queries for the Social Directory APIs $query = "SELECT * FROM social.connections WHERE owner_guid=me LIMIT 2"; $result = $session->query($query); // Build the output HTML echo("<html><body><pre><h2>Connection Data</h2>" ); var_dump($result) ; echo("</pre></body></html>"); ?> YQL :: 3-legged OAuth – PHP SDK

YQL :: 3-legged OAuth – Result

What history tells us

March 2005

Developer Network launched

2 people (+ 1 at Search)

Search API only

About 10 web service calls

Servers only on the west coast

Funded by Jerry

March 2006

20 APIs

YUI Libraries

JSON, Serialized PHP

2 Developer centers

Servers in two colos

Web 2.0 & Mashups

Hackday 06

Event:

Learning, Hacking, Camping

Numbers:

350 developers came to Yahoo!

4000 Pictures on Flickr (hackday06)

56 hacks presented

Launched several APIs & BBAuth

One month of planning

Beck performed a full show

Winners:

Blogging in motion

Related: http://purplepedals.com/

March 2007

Categories -> Four pillars

Not pretty - but functional

Pipes launched

YDN international

Local developer events

More Hackdays

March 2008

Over 50 APIs

Big YOS initiative started

Retired less valuable of APIs

Incorporated a lot of video

Various international Hackdays

2009: Will charge for BOSS

Key learnings

Developers are lazy

Developers are impatient

Developers are opinionated

They look under the cover, analyze, hack.

Of course they are smart, innovative and driven to optimize!

Your success depends on that!

Learnings :: Developers are …

Value => Adoption

Solve their problems

Help them be efficient

Standards instead of buzz words

Facts instead of slogans

Time!!!

Learnings :: Developers are lazy

Capture their interest – direct it quickly

Fast access to high value offers

Easy signup

Quick start guide

Build on what they know

Learnings :: Developers are impatient

Learnings :: Content Unfiltered RSS Feeds Ruby Language Center SearchMonkey Security Best Practices Shopping API Silverlight Language Center Site Explorer API Stencils for Designers Traffic API Travel API Upcoming API Utilities API Video Search API Weather API Web Search API Widgets Yahoo! User Interface Library YAP / YOS YDN Theater Yslow Zimbra … Hadoop HotJobs API Image Search API Java Language Center JavaScript Language Center l10n & i18n Tools Live Video Broadcast Local Search API Geocoder API Traffic API Mail API Media Player Plugin Message Boards MyBlogLog API MyWeb API .NET Language Center News Search API oAuth OpenID PHP Language Center Pipes Python Language Center Address Book API Ajax Maps Answers API ASTRA Library Audio Search API Autos Custom API BBAuth Blog Blueprint BOSS CodeSamples ColdFusion Language Center Content Analysis API del.icio.us API Design Pattern Library Exceptional Performance Finance API Fire Eagle™ API Flash Language Center Flash Maps Flickr API GeoPlanet™ API

Learnings :: Content Unfiltered cont.

Learnings :: Content Structured

Learnings :: Content Visually Organized

Developers are connected – Online and offline

Your product gets discussed in public forums

You should be part of that discussion

If you don’t build a community around it, they will

Learnings :: Developers are opinionated

Join developer channels to communicate (not to market)

Twitter, Message Boards, Blog comments, IRC

Slideshare

Del.icio.us, Flickr, Upcoming

The right events - Unconferences

Provide value, have conversations, share code

Be accessible, embrace feedback

Developers don’t respond to formal marketing!

Learnings :: Developers are opinionated contd

"If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

-- Lord Kelvin

Know your winners

Measure as much as you can

Web site stats

API calls

Forum post

Personal interactions - documented feedback properly

...

Keep doing what works – Fix or retire what’s broken

Learnings :: Metrics

Set expectations, communicate a roadmap / vision

Avoid pre-announcements

The macro affects the developer products

High appreciation of events outside of Silicon Valley

Coding competitions rather then car give aways

Learnings :: Others

Four Pillars

The four critical parts of a Developer Network offer Data

The four critical parts of a Developer Network offer Data Tools

The four critical parts of a Developer Network offer Data HowTos Tools

The four critical parts of a Developer Network offer Data HowTos Support Communication Tools

Key Take Aways

Developers are lazy, impatient and opinionated

Traditional marketing does not work

However

Developers are willing to pay for value

Take Aways

Thank You Questions? [email_address]

Lessons Learned - Building YDN

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