using Yahoo! APIs for the mobile web:
content, location and context
ricardo varela
ricardov@yahoo-inc.com
http://twitter.com/phobeo
overtheair09
London, 25th sept 2009

the age of mobile is
nigh! (no, really...)
iphone, android, mobile 2.0,
mobile services, ubiquitous
experience, j2me,
micropayments, widget, app
store, personalization, SDK ,
location-based services,
ecosystems, mobile porn, data
plans, cloud data, customer
loyalty, mobile marketing, w3c
MWI, pay through phone,
message-based services,
mobile-first experience,
femtocells, global reach, music
downloads, mobile
convergence
buzzwords selected on purpose to beat the keyword bingo!
img by David Malcomson

but... what does
mobile mean?
mobile is not just a smaller
screen
information where you need it
things you can do only now
img from bestadsontv.com

what works in mobile?
data from all about the iphone, comscore mobile study and apple store

trying to summarize it in some way...
content
location
and context

and what does yahoo have to do with this?
we have been playing mobile for long
http://mobile.yahoo.com
but that’s not all!

the yahoo developer network
http://developer.yahoo.com

content
finance, hotjobs, upcoming, local, weather, flickr, music, answers, search
make your own: hadoop, pig

example: wassup!

but we always end up mixing services
$myurl = sprintf('http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?
method=flickr.photos.search&per_page=%d&bbox=%s&api_key=%s&page=%d&tags=%s',
$maxPerPage, $bbox, FLICKR_API_KEY, $page, TAGS);
$xml_doc = DOMDocument::load($xml);
$xpath = new DOMXPath($xml_doc);
$result = $xpath->query("//rsp/photos/photo");
foreach($result as $item){
$photo_id = $item->getAttribute('id');
$infourl = sprintf('http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?
method=flickr.photos.getInfo&api_key=%s&photo_id=%s', FLICKR_API_KEY, $id);
$info_doc = DOMDocument::load($infourl);
$xpath_info = new DOMXPath($info_doc);
$image_url = $xpath_info->query("//urls/url");
// insert more processing here...
}

content: YQL, the swiss army knife of data
select * from internet
offers simple access to all of services from yahoo...
... or from outside (http://www.datatables.org/)

so that we end up with this...
select urls.url from flickr.photos.info
where photo_id in
( select id from flickr.photos.search
where text="tate modern")
imgs from housemouse and wellsoitappears on twitter

or other similar cases...
select title,abstract,url from search.news
where query="iphone"
select * from local.search where query="sushi"
and location="san francisco, ca"
and Rating.AverageRating>4.0
select name, website from music.artist.similar
where id in
(select id from music.artist.popular)

and it is also good for scraping...
select src from html where url in
(“http://icanhascheezburger.com/?s=phone”,
“http://failblog.org/?s=phone”)
and xpath=”//div[@class=’entry’]/div/div/p/img”
use "http://phobeo.com/hacks/yql/tables/
cineworld.cinemasearch.xml" as cinemas;
select * from cinemas where nearlocation="wc2h"
select * from microformats where
url="http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4165902/"

and has widgety goodness
Use server side...
YQL_IMG_EXTRACT = "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?
q=select%20*%20from%20html%20where%20url%3D'{URL}'%20and
%20xpath%3D'%2F%2Fbody%5B%40id%3D%22noticias%22%5D%2Fdiv%5B
%40id%3D%22wrapper%22%5D%2Fdiv%5B2%5D%2F%2Fimg%5B%40title
%5D'%20limit%203&format=json"
def images
url = YQL_IMG_EXTRACT.gsub(/{URL}/,
CGI.escape(self.url))
results = JSON.parse(open(url).read)['query']['results']

and has widgety goodness
...or straight from the client!
function get() {
var old = document.getElementById('triggerscript');
if(old){
old.parentNode.removeChild(old);
}
var where = document.getElementById('loc').value;
var url='http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20*%20from
%20upcoming.events(100)%20where%20woeid%20in%20(select%20woeid%20from%20geo.places
%20where%20text%3D%22'+encodeURIComponent(where)+'%22)%20limit%20'+count+'%20offset
%20'+offset+'%20%7C%20sort(field%3D%22start_date
%22)&format=json&callback=displayResult';
var s = document.createElement('script');
s.setAttribute('id','triggerscript');
s.setAttribute('src',url);
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);
return false;
}

there’s also location
maps, placemaker, fireeagle

again, we could use those from yql
// check for geo references
SELECT * FROM geo.placemaker
WHERE documentContent = "First we take Manhattan, and then we take Berlin"
AND documentType="text/plain"
// geolocate all places in a page and give me the maps...
select * from maps.map
where (latitude, longitude) IN
(SELECT match.place.centroid.latitude, match.place.centroid.longitude
FROM geo.placemaker
WHERE documentURL = "http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8274262.stm"
AND documentType="text/html")
// combine place names with a text search for adding “location search”
select * from nestoria.search where price_max=1000 and bedroom_min = 1 and
listing_type="rent" and place_name in (
select name from geo.places.neighbors where neighbor_woeid in (
select woeid from geo.places where text="pimlico, uk" limit 1
) limit 3
)

with the exception of fireeagle (for now...)
also, a comment on auth modes
(app or mobile auth should work just fine)

and finally, context...
there’s more context than just location
contacts, address book, social directory, boss keywords

example: trendnews

example: trendnews
trending topic “Les Paul”
http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20090813/fallece-a-los-anos-guitarrista-
estadounidense-les-paul/288969.shtml
select * from search.web
where sites="http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20090813/
fallece-a-los-anos-guitarrista-estadounidense-les-paul/
288969.shtml"
and view="keyterms" and query="les paul"

and for more...
http://developer.yahoo.com

so get on hacking...
we have some nice present full
of caffeinated goodness for the
best hack using Yahoo! APIs
for details on how to send
yours, check the overtheair.org
site!

and let us know if we
can lend a hand!
YDN forums
http://developer.yahoo.com/forum
The Y! guys
(located around bean bag area)

thank you!
ricardo varela
ricardov@yahoo-inc.com
http://twitter.com/phobeo