Yahoo! Shortcuts (beta)

Over the last few months Crowd Favorite has had the opportunity to work with some great people at Yahoo! to create a rather unique WordPress plugin: Yahoo! Shortcuts. This is probably the most ambitious plugin I’ve helped build, and I think it will be really useful for a number of bloggers out there.

Basically it will suggest all sorts of Yahoo! content to augment what you’re writing about. It can give you little finance widgets for companies:

Maps and travel information for locations:

And even Flickr photos¹:

You get to choose to enable or disable each of the detected shortcuts, and you get to choose how to display them. Some can be embedded badges while others have little pop-up effects when you mouse over them.

This is a beta release, which means there are a few little quirks that may pop up from time to time. I’m sure there will be a lot of great user feedback (and bug reports) coming in as folks start using this to make 1.0 even better.

More info and coverage:

It’s also worth noting that the plugin code is all Open Source under a modified BSD license. It’s almost a no-brainer for a company like Yahoo! to make this decision nowdays, which is pretty fantastic.

We had a number of interesting challenges during the creation of the plugin. It was great to see the Yahoo! team not want to make compromises from the user experience they wanted; it was up to us to make sure they didn’t have to.

Interacting with the WordPress rich text editor is always interesting. We needed to allow people to move the Yahoo! content (maps, photos, charts) around and align them left and right. To accomplish this we had to use placeholder images for the content in some cases. Then we translate the placeholder image back to the proper content to display it.
As anyone who builds an API knows, no matter how much you plan ahead your first customer will always ask for a feature you overlooked or thought you could postpone until later. As the first customers of the Yahoo! Shortcuts API we found that while almost everything we needed was provided to us, there were a few things that we needed to tweak in order to accomplish what we needed on the WordPress side. Luckily we had access to the API engineers at Yahoo! to give us the additional functionality we needed.
Working with a large company without having our project manager in place (yet). I verified that project management is not my strongest suit - thankfully we’ve remedied that situation. Back to focusing on development for me (yay!).

This project also afforded me a chance to meet Jeremy Zawodny. Jeremy is one of the first bloggers I started following in (I think) late 2002 and it was great timing to be able to meet up with him at Defrag a little over a month ago. We shot a little screencast video walk-though of the Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin².

Full Disclosure: Yahoo! was our customer to create this plugin. That said, they did not provide any restrictions about what I could say here, ask me to follow any guidelines or even ask me to highlight any specific features.

Those with proper Creative Commons licenses. [back]
Because who doesn’t love to watch two guys in green sweaters staring at a laptop? You can tell that Jeremy knew there would be footage of us as well as the screencast in the final video - I’ll know next time. [back]

Popularity: 25% [?]

Posted December 13th, 2007 @ 7:46 AM

47 Replies

bill nanson adds this Comment:

Maybe now we just need a plugin that comes up with text and adds the necessary adwords etc…
(whatever happened to personal design and creativity…)

December 13th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Dave adds this Comment:

Uh-oh, here come the haters!

Looks pretty cool to me, I like that it uses CC licensed Flickr photos.

December 13th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Geof F. Morris adds this Comment:

Glad to see this out for general use, Alex.

December 13th, 2007 at 9:12 am
BN adds this Comment:

Sound and looks great to me! But “This Shortcuts plugin works best with English language blog posts” … are there plans for more localized versions in other languages?German, Spanish, French, Chinese etc.?

December 13th, 2007 at 9:18 am
תוסף וורדפרס לשילוב אוטומטי של תמונות מפליקר ועוד (מבית יאהו, קוד פתוח) · סטארטר adds this Pingback:

[…] באינטרנט, וורדפרס YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet=YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet||{};אלכס קינג מספר על הפיתוח של חברת פיתוח הווב שלו בשילוב […]

December 13th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Yahoo Shortcuts Wordpress Plugin adds this Pingback:

[…] Check out Alex’s post about it here: http://alexking.org/[...]oo-shortcuts […]

December 13th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Exocert.com » Yahoo Shortcuts para Wordpress adds this Pingback:

[…] de ver en el Blog de Alex King que acaba de publicar un plugin para Wordpress que integra contenido de Yahoo en tu blog (por encargo de Yahoo, claro […]

December 13th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Please God, no more pop-up links - - mathewingram.com/work adds this Pingback:

[…] for Wordpress — and I’m a huge fan of Alex King, the Wordpress plugin genius who designed the feature (and also did the wonderful Share This plugin) — but this new Yahoo offering makes me very […]

December 13th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Living in the Whine Country » Archive » Yahoo Shortcuts for Wordpress adds this Pingback:

[…] King has written a number of plugins, including ones used on this site. So it was with interest I read about his latest contract project for Yahoo.� He was asked to help code a plugin to integrate a number of Yahoo’s services in […]

December 13th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
César adds this Comment:

Great plugin! Thank you!

But I have the same question BN has: localization would be icing on the cake

December 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Timothy Latz adds this Comment:

Is this SNAP shots redux???

Ugh, no thanks…
This plugin benefits only Yahoo, not the blog owner, unless you are a splogger who is looking to get linked into Yahoo..

December 13th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
power.org.mx » Blog Archive » Wordpress Plugin: Yahoo Shortcuts adds this Pingback:

[…] duda Yahoo no se quiere quedar lejos de Wordpress y viceversa, Alex King trabajó en un plugin el cual nos permite crear enlaces rápidos con productos en Yahoo, tales como […]

December 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Yahoo! Shortcuts - nu kliver de in i din blogg - om du vill | gunnar.se adds this Pingback:

[…] så att man baxnar faktiskt. Och Yahoo har använt sig av en av de bästa plugin-killarna i stan, Alex King. Inte ett öga är torrt. Och bloggvärlden blir inte sig lik igen. PS. Redan ser man de som […]

December 13th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
gestroud adds this Comment:

Gotta admit that I had my doubts about the possible usefulness of this plugin until I watched the video. The mapping and Flickr aspects sold me. I’m looking forward to this handy little tool to come out of beta and become a full release.

December 13th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Yahoo! Cool thing of the Day » Blog Archive » Y!Shortcuts for Wordpress adds this Pingback:

[…] yes, Crowd Favorite (along with our help) has launched a plugin for WordPress to help you find stuff that’s […]

December 13th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
next.yahoo » Blog Archive » Just-in-time blogging with Y! Shortcuts for WordPress adds this Pingback:

[…] special shout-out to Alex King and the web development crew at Crowd Favorite, who built the plugin in collaboration with the […]

December 13th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
links for 2007-12-14 | Ge Xiaofei adds this Pingback:

[…] Yahoo! Shortcuts (beta) | alexking.org (tags: wordpress plugins) […]

December 13th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Yahoo Shortcuts & Wordpress - ShoeMoney® adds this Pingback:

[…] Alex King […]

December 13th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
tecosystems » links for 2007-12-14 adds this Pingback:

[…] Yahoo! Shortcuts (beta) | alexking.org very cool WP plugin from Alex and the gang over at Crowd Favorite (tags: yahoo wordpress plugins alexking crowdfavorite flickr) […]

December 13th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Hover adds this Comment:

Hey..thats a great plugin…We are working on a similar application that will be not only for wordpress but for any website and you can display any amount of content, including videos, third party widgets…with complete customizations…The best part is that it can be monetized with adsense / YPN or any other contextual and affiliate ads…
We are in alpha..and should be open for private beta sometime in first week of Jan.. (http://hover.in)

December 13th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
links for 2007-12-14 | Stephan Miller adds this Pingback:

[…] http://alexking.org/[...]oo-shortcuts I like the plugins that speed things up. This one has the ability to add a lot of things from Yahoo, including adding Flickr pics, something I have been looking for for a while. (tags: wordpress plugins) […]

December 14th, 2007 at 5:24 am
Rudy adds this Comment:

Hmm, I’m having difficulty with Yahoo Shortcut mangling my post. I’ll post the bug report for Yahoo’s customer care.

December 14th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
links for 2007-12-14 | gunnar.se adds this Pingback:

[…] Yahoo! Shortcuts (beta) […]

December 14th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Michael Cruz adds this Comment:

a lot of promise and I’m excited to see its possible uses in the future. In fact, It would be great to see it have some monetization elements added in…almost an all in one adsense with the ability to embed multimedia.

One problem I had was code showing up in my category excerpts but Im sure that will be worked out shortly.

December 14th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Ken adds this Comment:

If it is open source, where is the source code published at?

December 14th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Yahoo! Shortcuts Plugin Review - Super Blogging For Dummies | NOIRLECROI.COM adds this Pingback:

[…] Anyway, congrats go out to the developer with high interest on what mods will occur in the future. Check out the developer’s page here: the developer’s page. […]

December 14th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
from the text editor of aseidman.com » Yahoo Shortcuts for Wordpress (Beta) adds this Pingback:

[…] my team announced the launch of Yahoo! Shortcuts for Wordpress which we developed with Alex King and the CrowdFavorite team — CrowdFavorite team specializes in Wordress custom development […]

December 14th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Nick adds this Comment:

I don’t understand how this benefits anyone. People hate pop up ads, and now they’re will be multiple ads in every post? I could understand if I was getting paid for it, but I’m supposed to compromise my integrity, and the quality of my site, for the benefit of whom? Yahoo!? Doesn’t add up for me, you made a great plug-in, but anyone that uses it is an idiot. That’s not an insult to you, like I said, the programming aspect of it is great, but what Is Yahoo! thinking here. Are we morons to them or something? If you want ads all over your site go to Text Link ads and get paid for it at least. I’m sure this plugin will screw your Google Page rank just the same. Then if you want photo’s, go to Yahoo or Google and punch in the topic and pick a photo.

December 14th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Richard Catto adds this Comment:

I’m hooked! Brilliant integration with flickr - makes finding a suitable pic to go with my posts a snap!

However, I had to strip the id and class from the html because the formatting clashed and the image overwrote parts of my text.

Please fix this.

December 15th, 2007 at 7:02 am
OG's Blog » . adds this Pingback:

[…] Yahoo! Shortcuts (beta) - Alex King […]

December 15th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Yahoo’s brand new WordPress plugin is being shown the finger by bloggers | Cape Town news adds this Pingback:

[…] enlisted one of WordPress’ famous developers, Alex King, to write their Yahoo shortcuts plugin. He has done a pretty good job for Yahoo. I’ve […]

December 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am
What is Yahoo!’s Role in the Blogosphere? : The Blog Herald adds this Pingback:

[…] Wordpress I’ve been wondering what Yahoo!’s role in the blogosphere is. The plugin is developed for Yahoo! by Alex King who wrote an impressive amount of popular WordPress plugins. Will this plugin become another […]

December 16th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
» Blog Archive » Shortcuts per Wordpress, un plugin per Wordpress davvero speciale adds this Pingback:

[…] Davvero molto interessante, per maggiori informazioni seguite il link http://alexking.org/[...]oo-shortcuts […]

December 26th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
(a different) Alex adds this Comment:

Interesting plug-in. I gave it a quick try, but it seems to slow up my Wordpress Admin screens.

After disabling the plug-in I’m able to move around normally.

December 28th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Testing the Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin… and thinking aloud about a prediction market plugin. | Midas Oracle .ORG adds this Pingback:

[…] have just installed the Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin for WordPress. Let’s try it in avant-premiere… well, that is, before David Pennock installs it on his […]

January 1st, 2008 at 11:21 am
Chris Masse adds this Comment:

Hi Alex King,
It does not work for my blog. It inserts the code, but nothing is shown when the blog post is published. I probably have an option enabled on my WP that kills this plugin, but I don’t what. Any idea? Thanks.

January 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 am
Chris Masse adds this Comment:

UPDATE: I was using the rich editor, which the plugin does not support. Alex King and Yahoo! should have stated that clearly. I found that info at the bottom of a FAQ, whose link itself was at a bottom of a Yahoo! page.
http://help.yahoo.co[...]cuts-01.html
Anyway. I will try again. Have a great day. Thanks.

January 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 am
Linkify from Xenomachina - Best of 2007? (Video Intro) | Social Media Marketing Strategies from Social Media Marketing Expert Peter Lenkefi adds this Pingback:

[…] is similar to the new Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin (that caused errors on my blogs by the way) but, in my opinion, is much […]

January 2nd, 2008 at 10:15 am
Chris Masse adds this Comment:

Just a short note to tell you that, despite the disabling of the visual editor, the plugin does not work for me. It does insert the “classes”, but nothing shows up when the blog post is published. I left a message at Yahoo.
http://www.midasorac[...]rtcuts-plug/

January 2nd, 2008 at 10:29 am
manele adds this Comment:

i love this plugin! is really really cool!

January 5th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Andy adds this Comment:

This plugin IS cool if it works and it has caused me no end of trouble since upgrading to the latest WP security fix, 2.3.2. Basically, with this plugin installed everything in admin runs so impossibly slow you can’t access any functions. I had to manually delete the folder from my server before I could once again return to smooth and fast admin operations.

I really hope a new version comes out soon that addresses this huge problem. I’m not the only one encountering the slowdown but I would very much hope to try it out again soon, providing this problem is addressed. It’s got great potential, but to be very fair, it is in beta so problems are bound to crop up… It seems the WP upgrade has something in the mix (I’m no PHP coder) that doesn’t play nice with the plugin or vice versa.

January 14th, 2008 at 6:43 am
shuron adds this Comment:

Yahoo! ShortCuts should be realy beta version so far, it deletes posts while editing!

January 23rd, 2008 at 6:08 am
Overheard » ColoradoStartups.com adds this Pingback:

[…] Alex King talks with Yahoo’s Greg Cohn and shows off a screencast of the very cool Shortcuts plugin for Wordpress (shot during Defrag), which Crowd Favorite helped build for Yahoo. The plug in is here, in beta. […]

January 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Glen adds this Comment:

This plugin looks really handy, but unfortunately I had to deactivate it on my blog because one of the JavaScripts causes an error on the homepage

I look forward to the next version.

-Glen

January 29th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
hypotheek adds this Comment:

Thanx for giving the information. The plugin is working perfect.

February 25th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Andy adds this Comment:

I’ve come to rely on this wonderful plugin but when I tried to upgrade to WP 2.5 RC1 it stopped working, so I went back to 2.3.3 until I hear word of a new version that does work with 2.5. I wasn’t at all keen on the new-look 2.5 but this one plugin incompatibility really meant I had no choice but to rollback.

Under 2.5 you get the shortcuts box on the Write page, underneath everything else instead of to the right; but there’s no button to click, just the Yahoo logo.

March 26th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Hypotheek advies adds this Comment:

Does anybody know when we can expect 2.5 live version next year or last quarter 2008 ?

Thanks

Stefan

April 28th, 2008 at 4:36 am