March 27, 2008

Yahoo! loses head of its developer network to UK paper

Mike Butcher

16 comments »

How many newspapers can you think of that are looking to build a platform for developers? I’ll wager not many. Which is why it’s significant that The Guardian newspaper in London has just made a major hire direct out of Yahoo! to build a development platform to engage with developers and startups. Matt McAlister, currently the director of Yahoo’s developer network in San Francisco and an early proponent of RSS and social media, is to become head of the Guardian’s development network from the end of April, reporting to Mike Bracken, recently appointed to the new post of technology director. The move is a blow to Yahoo! which needs all the good people it can get right now. [Disclosure: McAlister is a former colleague of mine at The Industry Standard Europe magazine).

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 8:47 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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March 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am

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Yahoo director of developer network leaving, going to The Guardian « Dan’s Tech-n-Stuff Weblog

March 28th, 2008 at 9:47 am

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Elliott Dahan

March 27th, 2008 at 8:56 am

The real issue is not if someone can bring a bag of Web 2.0 technologies to commercial media - the real issue is if someone can devise a system for commercial media to capture the intensely loyal Local Market in a cost efficient and professionally presented manner.

Elliott Dahan
elliott@thegrowthgroup.com
YDrive

March 27th, 2008 at 9:17 am

Guess it’s a very minor loss to Y!
alptekin

March 27th, 2008 at 9:17 am

thanmks
FNW

March 27th, 2008 at 9:30 am

So, what’s The Guardian next strategic move in Internet era?
Harry Wang

March 27th, 2008 at 9:45 am

Possible django-esque move?

Harry “or am I confusing my platforms” Wang
Eric

March 27th, 2008 at 9:47 am

I worked with Matt at InfoWorld for years. He’s one of the best, brightest minds out there. Good luck, Matt. Yahoo will surely miss you, and the Guardian is lucky to have you.
Shafqat

March 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am

This is awesome. Glad to see mainstream media organisations taking concrete steps to adopt to the new world. Really looking forward to seeing what kind of actionable steps Matt will take. There are a lot of startups (like ours) that would be very interested in teaming up with these ‘old school’ organisations and really introduce innovation to this industry.
Terry B

March 27th, 2008 at 10:57 am

interesting, lots of newspapers are working to become starting pages.
Champzilla

March 27th, 2008 at 11:30 am

Will this effect my score in Yahoo! Pool?
Searchquant

March 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am

Paly grads rule!
LoveYahoo

March 27th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Why is it that you never report any M$ departure?
Or did they pay you to attack yahoo like if their employees were fleeing in droves?
FUD to its best, lame M$ and lame T¢.
Current Yahoo!

March 27th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

This is a net-win for Yahoo. Sure Matt’s a “nice guy” but many of us will be happy to see him quickly replaced with someone technically qualified to run the Developer Network. He was in over his head there are receptionists here who are more visionary. Matt made no impact on the Developer Network during his short time (well under a year) running it. I wouldn’t normally speak up but I’m getting a bit sick of watching my peers try to make a name for themselves when they leave (especially those like Matt who did *nothing* of note during him time at the healm - unless you count managing Zawodney or authoring a few blog posts). This is only a story because the author knew Matt…
Matthew

March 27th, 2008 at 9:10 pm

ouch!