Yahoo Hack Day Today
by Michael Arrington on June 15, 2006

Yahoo has had a a couple of regional “Hack Days”, which are day long events where engineers stop everything they are doing and just build stuff that they think is cool. The idea was first popularized by Jot last year, and a number of companies have picked up on the idea as a great way to stoke innovation and creativity in a semi-organized way. The goal? Take something from idea to prototype in 24 hours.

Today at noon, however, Yahoo got serious about Hack Days by making it Yahoo-wide. Every Yahoo engineer is invited to participate, and other employees are joining in as well. Anyone with an idea is encouraged to gather a team up and spend a day coding. Tomorrow (Friday) at noon, the hacking stops and everyone will get together to review what’s been built.

The effort is being led out of Bradley Horowitz’s product strategy group, with Chad Dickerson and Caterina Fake organizing the event.

I’ll be there to cover the event tomorrow, as will Jeremy Zawodny and John Markoff of the New York Times.

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I’m probably not what you had in mind, but I’ll do my best to blog it tomorrow. :-)

 

I would like to see some of these “prototypes” put into use. Whats the point of wasting all that time just to forget about it?

 

My thoughts:

1. Good idea. It’s worked for Google.
2. The “Mashup or Shutup” slogan is sympomatic of society’s inconsiderate, if not rude attitude toward each other. Reminds me of the “Treat me like the princess I am” shirts. Who are you? Are you more important than me?
3. One word - poser.

 
 

Actually “Mash-Up” refers to the biggest thing in music where they take 1, 2, 3 or more songs and make one incredibly annoying one. Why don’t they have a day like this in other fields? lol

 

Tom: Some of the old prototypes (from previous Hack Days) *are* working their way to the surface. This isn’t just an exercise to blow off steam–some very, very good product ideas come out of these events.

 

Argh, didn’t know about this until 8pm tonight. Jeremy, you gotta give us a little notice next time so we can get started on time! :)

 

i think this is a brilliant idea, allot of new ideas can be put into a prototype in a day, showing the creativity, say only 1 idea shines through all of this, sureley thats a good thing?

UK Dedicated Servers

 

I thought we are all supposed to hack Yahoo sites on Yahoo Hack Day…. :)

 

What a great idea. Now that it is Nation-wide maybe there will be some more intel supported software. C’mon!!!!

 

Chad rocks with this great idea. Really glad to see more companies embracing such innovations in mashing up people and ideas.

 

I watching the presentation session steaming live over the corp. network right now. There’s some really great ideas so far. Too bad I can’t tell you any of them… :P

 

Great idea. Keep the creative juices fresh.

 

Why just a day, maybe they should start every quarter with a “Hack Day” then one day every week have everyone conttribute their part to the best project concepts. Naw we would see more OS’s, better games P2P software that actually works, and were would we be then….oh thats right…we would be right where we are!

 

After the fact, the event was quite a success. It was my first experience with any “hack day”-like event, being a summer intern. From what I could see there were several (more than 10 of the 102 hacks) that could be integrated into products by next week. Then others could be their own products. There are some sharp hackers @ Yahoo.

 

Of course, for non-Yahooers, there’s always Mash Pit (in fact, there’s one coming up on Tues in San Francisco!)

 

This is my first time haring of this. very interesting. when yahoo become a big company, the innovation becomes difficult. this might encouraging people to think innovation.

 

I want to know The Methods of emails & gmails Hacking ! ok?????

 

Hello Friends in My Web New HAcking Software :) Plz Check ,Download And Enjoy :)…. Friends if u have more software than add my email and share the Data Thx this is my Email :) sam_davilzz@yahoo.com…. Thx

 

That’s a great motivation idea! I think I’ll try to do something like that with my guys.

 

YOUR HACKERS & SpY RuLeS! both of you are promoting your sites which is not allowed here. We are here to discuss on the topic “Yahoo Hack Day Today” Please don’t try to hack or crack such topics.

 

Hello friends is there many who can hack yahoo please help my whos can hacking yahoo send my mail Geto@asia.com

 

i need to learn to hack into not only yahoo.com but everything. i think i could become the greatest hack ever. i’ve done a little but i need to do more. i want to be come the best ever.

 

Steer clear of Yahoo! they are owned by Mafia and are affiliated to pornographers who use captive women, see here http://endmafia.com

 
 

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