Ross Harmes, Front-end Manager, Flickr


My name is Ross Harmes, I'm the Front-end manager here at Flickr and I've been at Yahoo! almost 5 years now. I think Yahoo! right now has the best combination of amazing properties to work on and unbelievably talented engineers.  The people I work with here are some of the best I've ever worked with in the world.

We're in the process of speeding up the site as a whole. Especially getting Flickr faster to people internationally.  We actually took a page that takes 6 seconds to load on average and knocked it down to a about a second a half which is a big difference.

One of my favorite stories is.. we have have a photograph that was on the Flickr front page and it was up there for 5 years and we went back to that photographer 5 years later and asked how it changed his life.  And this guy went from being a cement layer to now a professional photographer just because of the publicity he got from that one photo.  I love that story.

Flickr's great, I mean right now we have around 6 billion photos and that's almost a photo for every man, woman, and child on earth.  We have people uploading photos from every single country in the world.  We're trying to get into more languages so we can have even more people around the world.  In terms of one photo site on the web that really brings everyone together, I think it's got to be Flickr.

Posted on CNBC - 
"A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating 10 Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation" will feature special performances by Lady Gaga, Usher, and a rare acoustic performance by U2's The Edge and Bono, as well as additional artists to be announced. The concert will be held at the iconic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, CA and will be broadcast live only on Yahoo! (http://clintonconcert.yahoo.com).

"I am proud that some of today's most influential performers are coming together to raise awareness about the work of my Foundation," said President Bill Clinton. "In the past decade, commitments to my Clinton Global Initiative have improved the lives of more than 300 million people around the world. We've lowered the cost of AIDS and HIV treatment, combated climate change, strengthened economies, increased access to education and healthcare, provided financing and mentoring for small businesses. This celebration marks ten years of these efforts and demonstrates how much we can do to make a difference in the years ahead." Millions of people around the world will be able to watch the concert live only on Yahoo!, the premier digital media company and the exclusive live online broadcast partner for the concert. The live concert will be available at http://clintonconcert.yahoo.com. The concert will be featured globally and will be also available on-demand on Yahoo!, which will feature highlights and interviews with the artists, and other guests during and after the live event on October 15. At Yahoo!, viewers will be able to donate to the William J. Clinton Foundation....

For the entire article please visit this link.

Also check out more details on Yahoo! Music Blog - Stop the Presses! Photo courtesy of the Stop the Presses blog.

At the risk of stating the obvious: in the Internet business, mobile is huge. At the risk of stating a fact that many people seem not to understand as obvious: Yahoo! is huge in mobile.

With the headlines around our company recently, I understand why many pundits want to weigh in with their own ideas and storylines about Yahoo!. Yahoo! is both an iconic brand and a major Internet player. In fact, with 680 million users globally, we are the premier digital media company in the world. So it makes sense that everyone has an opinion on Yahoo!. But when it comes to mobile, I think some of the prevailing opinions haven’t been capturing the full picture. So, in my own words, I feel compelled to offer my perspective on why Yahoo! is a major mobile player.
First off, though, who am I? Good question. My name is Paul Cushman. I’m very proud to have worked at Yahoo! for the past four years as head of mobile ad sales. I’ve been in mobile advertising for 11 years. In that time, I’ve witnessed the amazing evolution of the mobile Web first hand. When reports like this week’s from IDC predict that mobile Internet users will exceed those from traditional PC channels by 2015, it’s exciting for me, because it’s a vision I’ve believed in for a long time. It’s also a world in which Yahoo! will absolutely have a major role to play globally.

In fact, we’ve been a major player for years. Did you know that Yahoo reaches 56 million unique mobile web users a month in the US alone? That’s 51% reach for the overall US mobile market. That makes us the #3 mobile brand. If Yahoo! mobile were a website on a PC, its audience would be larger than ESPN or LinkedIn. That’s a.) not too shabby and b.) a position we believe we’re primed to improve.
No one has the combination of audience size, innovation, mobile partnerships, or support of CMO-level client relationships we have at Yahoo!. As a salesperson who wants to help advertisers make an impact on mobile, it’s a thrill to work at this company.
If you still have your doubts, and because everyone likes lists, here’s my recap of the impact Yahoo! has had on mobile:
- We were the first major search company to launch a search product designed for mobile FIRST: that was oneSearch in 2007.- Yahoo! Go was an awesome product, way ahead of the market when it first launched in January 2006 (18 months before the iPhone!). It enabled email, uploading photos, mapping, search via Yahoo’s oneSearch and Yahoo! Answers service, stock quotes, and breaking news.- We were ahead of the curve integrating interactive rich media ads onto search results pages for mobile, which delivered a 15 times increase in click-through rates.- We have more than 100 partnerships in mobile around the world, and recently AT&T; made Yahoo! its homepage on all Android and RIM devices.- Yahoo! is the #1 U.S. mobile property in Finance and Entertainment, and #2 in five other categories.- Yahoo! Weather AND Finance are built-in iPhone experiences.- Yahoo! Sportacular is in the “iPhone Hall of Fame” and 40% of our Fantasy Football audience, which broke all kinds of traffic records this past opening weekend for the NFL, accesses our site from mobile devices.- And then there are all the cool ads we’ve run on our mobile homepage, including our “Rango” campaign for Paramount where Rango the chameleon changes color when you swipe. That’s mobile innovation in ad creative and interaction.
Sometimes I think we at Yahoo! are a little too humble in promoting our achievements – mobile and otherwise. I fully realize we’re not without challenges, but from my vantage point, we have a tremendous amount of new innovation, products, and ad solutions in the works for this fall and beyond, and a lot of committed Yahoos like me who want to continue making a difference.
Cheers,Paul CushmanStill Proud to be a Yahoo! Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a series entitled, “In My Own Words,” that will give Yahoo employees the opportunity to share their own stories about Yahoo!. Feel like yodeling your own? Post your Yahoo! story on your social networks using the hashtag #myYahoostory.