Ronny Lempel, Chief Data Scientist, Yahoo! Labs, Israel, drew an extremely engaged audience from across industry and academia at his recent Big Thinkers session in Bangalore. Ronny’s talk kicked off the Yahoo! Big Thinkers India Series for 2013, a well-regarded lecture series by Yahoo! Labs on cutting edge areas in science, technology and the Internet. Ronny’s topic was Recommendation Challenges in Web Media Settings. He spoke about how recommendation technology is at the core of the effort to personalize media consumption on the Web, be it news stories or streaming music. Outlining research challenges and trends in the art of recommendation technology, Ronny said, “The key problem researchers are looking at involve the ability to suggest sequences, frame the user’s context, find people with similar interests and, finally, recommend to people things their friends have experienced.” 

With Yahoo!’s focus on building highly personalized experiences that connect people to what matters most to them, technologies like recommender systems are central to personalizing user experience. Ronny’s visit to India served to highlight Yahoo!’s thought leadership in research and science, and how it links to our business, in this case personalization and ad targeting.

The talk brought together over 130 researchers and practitioners around the emerging topics of recommender systems from leading tech companies like GE, Bosch, Siemens and Flipkart, along with several start-ups. “This kind of participation stimulates an exchange of ideas among the top minds in industry and academia and promotes a culture of open collaboration,” said Dr. Sridhar Mitta, an industry veteran and founder of NextWealth, who attended the talk. 

During his visit, Ronny also visited IIT-Bombay, a top tech college in India, where he guided several students on their research topics around recommendation technology.

His interactions through his India visit were characterized by deep technical discussions in research areas like Recommendation Technology, evolution of big data and the challenges of maintaining a balance between personalization and contextualization of the Internet. On his role as Chief Data Scientist, Yahoo! Labs, Ronny Lempel explained, “It is about looking at the areas where Yahoo! Labs interacts with our product groups to develop Yahoo! products. A lot of it has to do with personalization and ad targeting, which has a big reliance on recommendation technology. Machine learning, natural language processing and search technologies are all aspects that are important as to me as Chief Data Scientist. Beyond that, I also interact with our systems teams to define what the next generation of big data computational systems might look like or what is missing in our current generation of systems.”

Ahead of his Big Thinkers session, Ronny interacted with the media and was featured in-depth in some of India’s leading mainstream and financial dailies. You can see a snapshot of the coverage below:

Personalization and ad targeting rely on recommendation – The Financial Express 
Big data is not a new thing: Ronny Lempel – Mint
Yahoo! bets big on personal recommendations – Deccan Chronicle

At Yahoo!, Master Inventor Awards are given to recognize and reward some of the company’s top innovators. The criteria are not just about the number of patents, but also the inventor's contribution to innovation and their capacity and experience in mentorship. We had a chance to interview some of them on their great work and suggestions to junior inventors.

Why is Yahoo! a good place for developers and inventors?
Peter Mika: Yahoo! is a great place for inventors of all kinds. Yahoo! Labs in particular is unique in the industry in that it's renown both for scientific excellence externally and for having a huge impact on Yahoo!'s businesses.

Tarun Bhatia: It’s a great place for developers and engineers. There’s much room for creative solutions. We have many interesting problems with the potential of meaningful impact, large amounts of data, adequate resources, and a unique and fun culture. I love how many disciplines we embrace to solve our business challenges – economics, social sciences, artificial intelligence, distributed computing, etc. Each day is like being back in school, only better.

What are you working on now?
Tarun Bhatia: Right now, I’m trying to see if we can real-time assess how we affect a user with each interaction in a session. This has significant marketplace implications. Imagine how effectively we could delight our users and advertisers if every serve-time decision is consciously informed by this assessment.

What advice do you have for more junior inventors?
Ron Jacoby: Find something you are passionate about.  Work to really understand the current state of technology and business of that market. Find the opportunities that exist. Develop your ideas and plan. And never take No as a final answer; use it as feedback to further develop your ideas and pitch.

Tarun Bhatia: Best advice I received was - write it down. Apart from that, encourage yourself to cover a problem outside your area of focus with a fresh perspective. Think of where else your solutions may apply. Do this often.

Ricardo Baeza -Yates: Do not plan your life. Just do your best and unthinkable opportunities will cross your life path.

Yoelle Maarek: Think simple, think user. Don't think like an engineer or scientist – think about your mom, your kids, would they understand the value of your invention, would they want to use it.

By David Filo, Co-founder of Yahoo!

This past weekend, we celebrated Yahoo!’s 18th birthday. A birthday is a good time to reflect on the experiences that have helped shape you. This one is no different.

That’s why our birthday was the perfect time to bring together Yahoos from around the world for our quarterly Hackday. We created our first Hackday in 2005, bringing some of our most eager minds together in an all-night coding session. I’m proud that this tradition has continued.

Hackday Final Presentation at Sunnyvale                  

Hackdays are special for Yahoos -- as much a part of our history as our birthday itself. Hackers from all over the world come together for 24 hours to create something truly special. The experience is memorable, not only for the eccentricities, but also for the inspiring hacks that Yahoos create. Some hacks have become full-fledged products, like Yahoo! Weather for Android.
 

For our 18th birthday, we decided to turn our Hackday up a notch. We challenged hackers to focus on making our core products more inspiring, entertaining and innovative.

We were blown away by the number of Yahoos, diversity of hacks and creative energy. And, in fact, we broke a hack-to-product record by integrating the winning hack into our existing products within just a few days of its victory. This winning hack intelligently helps users find a web page when they have an incomplete URL for that page. Y! Canada News and Y! Sports blog are already live with this new feature.

 
Hackday Winners with David Filo and Yahoo! Develop Network

We also broke another record -- it was our biggest Hackday in the history of Yahoo!. Yahoos participated from nine offices across six time zones, all the way from Sunnyvale to Singapore, and from Norway to India.

We’re excited to turn our hacks into products, so stay tuned to see what’s in the pipeline.

Happy 18th Birthday, Yahoo!. Here’s to many more ..

The original post is from Yahoo! Yodel Blog

After the Yahoo! WPP and Publicis Hack days in New York, which drew top developers, marketers and designers from the digital advertising and consumer media industry, Yahoo! recently brought Agency Hack to India. Held in Gurgaon, an influential tech and media hub, this was our first-ever hackathon in the region open exclusively to advertising agencies.

Some of the country’s biggest ad agencies like Ogilvy, Webchutney and Digitas were there. What made the format interesting was the participation not just from developers, but also designers, user-experience specialists, digital strategists, media planners and copy writers.

Participating teams could choose to either build a campaign-based solution or a product-based one using technologies from Yahoo! and other players. Teams came up with smart digital hacks and other ideas to solve real-life problems in a frenzied 24 hours. Working prototypes ranged from mobile apps, to companion apps in a living room experience, to social apps for voting and blood donation. (See the complete list here.)

Since this was a creative bunch, the event had its share of whacky ideas. The winner, “Y! Loo.” was a hardware hack that leverages Yahoo! Messenger and enables users to remotely check the availability of their office loos (or conference rooms) and physically knock on the door if engaged! Webchutney took home the Gold for this notification system which they described as an “interactive restroom service.” :)

Digitas walked away with the Silver for their Twitter-based hack “Twinority Report”, a Tweet investigator that anticipates criminal intentions ranging from drug abuse to suicide to serious national threats, by analyzing keyword patterns. (This could also be of use to marketers to gauge or assess a new market / trend).

Sapient Nitro took home the Bronze for their movie viewing companion experience platform “Lens”. This digital advertisement publishing platform enables digital production houses to create ads in the movie timeline in rich visualization formats. Ads created on Lens can be published to companion apps of the production houses on platforms like iOS, Windows and Android.

The judging panel comprised technology, media and marketing experts
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The event was jointly organized by YDN, India Marketing, Communications and the Events team. Our YDN tech crew was also there to support the hackers. When participant Rohit Chaudhary’s fellow teammates could not make it to the event, the YDN crew guided this Strategy Planner from Reprise Media to build his hack – an app for blood donation which helps you find blood donors in your locality. 

Agency Hack was held as a precursor to the prestigious Yahoo! Big Idea Chair Awards 2012, which celebrates India’s most cutting-edge work in digital advertising. This year, the event drew a record 383 entries. “In the past, we have recognized innovation and excellence in digital advertising through the Big Idea Chair Awards. This year, with Agency Hack, we have gone a step further by encouraging innovation and giving agencies a playground to hack their ideas. Given the response, we would be looking to make this an annual event that builds on our commitment to digital,” says Nitin.

There was keen media interest, given the format of the event, with journalists stopping by to meet the teams. One of the first pieces of coverage appeared in the Hindustan Times, which is among the largest circulated English dailies in India. The paper’s tech commentator, N. Madhavan, hung out with the teams and shared the experience in his column. Read it online.

Yahoo!’s Year End Bash in Bangalore included a carnival, an exclusive concert and of course, a crowd that rocked!

“The best part of the evening was when my daughter got KK’s autograph, smiled, and told me, “Daddy, I love you for joining Yahoo!” :) That was a personal highlight for Y! Senior Product Manager Yogesh Rao, one of many Yahoos who partied at Yahoo! India R&D’s year-end bash in Bangalore. Annual parties are a tradition at Yahoo!. But this year was extra special, because Yahoos were joined by their families and friends.

Right up, the kids found something they couldn’t get enough of – a carnival enclosure. This came replete with stilt-walkers and every possible game under the sun. Parents had a tough time separating their children from their favorite stalls. That is, till the kids discovered an on-the-spot dance workshop. :) They had plenty of sustenance though, to keep their energy levels up. The Taj West End team was on hand to whip up a wide spread through the party.

Former Zoom anchor and TV host Neha Sareen was the MC for the evening, which had a line up of superb performances. A dance act by Yogi’s Angels was backed by some very talented in-house performances, as Yahoo!’s employees took the stage. There was much cheering through the choreographed dance sequences, mad ads, and near-professional singing, as Yahoos rooted for their versatile teammates.

A big highlight of the evening was the concert by Bollywood singer KK, who flew down to perform exclusively at the party. He rocked the venue with a concert that had Yahoos screaming for more. (Think Yaaron, Bas Ek Pal, Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai live, with KK just a few feet away…!) 

In spite of the gloomy weather forecast, the rain stayed away. No grey skies, but there was plenty of purple, Yahoo!’s signature color, to add a splash of color to this party.

Awards which honor digital excellence drew a record number of entries in India, with Ogilvy taking home the coveted chair.

The fight for the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair just grew BIGGER in India. This year, there were an unprecedented 376 entries from 72 agencies for 128 brands. This is more than double the number of entries we received in 2010, when the Awards first came to India.

The Yahoo! Big Idea Chair has become the industry benchmark for digital excellence in the country. It honors outstanding work from the online creative and media community, celebrating innovation, and excellence. The overwhelming interest from marketers this year was evidence that winning a Big Idea Chair trophy is both an honor for a brand, and a reiteration of their commitment to Digital.

A panel of 16 jury members, comprising industry experts from marketing, brand and advertising, selected three outstanding campaigns in each of these categories: Best Use of Display Advertising, Best Online Video Advertising, Best Use of Social Media, Best Use of Technology, Best Use of Mobile Advertising, Best Use of Search and Digital 360. This was apart from the flagship, sought-after Big Idea Chair Award.

The event finale in Mumbai on November 9 saw a great turn out of over 325 guests, from Agency heads, to industry leaders and the brightest talent in advertising, who are collectively raising the bar on Digital.

19 winners took home a Big Idea Chair Trophy on the day. But only one agency could win the Purple Chair, and that honor went to Ogilvy for the Cadburys Date Fillum Campaign. Incidentally, this is the agency’s second consecutive win at the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair Awards. Abhijit Avasthi, National Creative Director, Ogilvy India, said, “Winning the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair is indeed special, as it awards excellence in an emerging and important medium. Ogilvy has dominated TV and print advertising, so it is great to see we have tremendous talent in digital as well. Our win today is a sure eye-opener for folks who had thought of Ogilvy as only a TV-ad agency.”

Click to see the complete list of winners and the ‘big’ digital ideas that worked for them.

Share Shift on Digital: From Presence to Excellence was the hotly discussed topic at a panel discussion at the finale. The panelists tackled some tough questions that hound stakeholders today. Investment, resources, skills? Are we doing enough to endorse digital, and leverage the real possibilities it offers? Why is it that digital though the cheaper of the lot, is always up against a higher expectation of RoI? Does digital ever get a strong buy-in from senior management? Interestingly, the discussion revealed that several major brands today in this part of the world, do aim for deeper integration of digital in their overall marketing plans. Moderated by Suresh Venkat, Technology Editor, CNBC TV18, the panelists included CR Mallikarjundas, CEO, Starcom Mediavest; Valerie Rozycki Wagoner, Founder and CEO Zipdial; C Abhiroop, Head of Media Services, Unilever South Asia; and from Yahoo!, Nitin Mathur, Senior Director Marketing for India and South East Asia..

With so many creative minds in the room, there was an incredible energy at the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair finale, both on stage and off it. The Yahoo! Homepage photo booth, where folks could pose with props, was much visited. There was also the Big Idea Wall of Fame, and the Digital Gallery, where the audience could check out the best digital work.

The continued success of this event has come from the team effort by the India Marketing and Comms team and the Sales and Strategy team.

See event photos on Flickr

Our fifth Open Hack in India held in Bangalore on August 11-12, was Yahoo!’s biggest Open Hack ever. Check out the cool hackers, and the amazing energy which sets this event apart!

With huge participation from across the country, Open Hack India 2012 saw over 700 hackers getting together to build on their ideas across three main categories: Multi-device Experiences, Digital Media and Advertising, and Digital Communications. In the spirit of Open Hack, there was also a catch-all category called Surprise Us.

24 hours, 7,600 cups of tea and coffee later, it came down to five hacks, which wowed the judging panel. A simple and intuitive tool edged out 157 others hacks to win the grand prize. Amod Kumar Pandey and Nikhil Baliga, who have been part of past Open Hacks, struck gold this time with Brock. This tool allows even non-developers to build very useful mini-apps for their Android devices, with just a few clicks. Brock is built on top of on{x} and completely insulates the end-user from the code, by generating it. You can try out Brock here.

Other winning hacks included:

Pictrendz: Lets users understand ongoing trends with a single look at image clusters, instead of word clouds.
Beam OS: Helps users to manage, organize and browse all their files spread across multiple cloud services, from a single user-friendly desktop-like environment.
BookMafia: A mobile app that enables easy circulation of books among geographically close users.
Vibration Reduction for Improved Readability: A group of ex-Yahoos built this browser-based hack to counter physical vibrations on mobile devices, to improve ease of reading while in a vehicle.

Read the detailed post on the winning hacks, along with other updates from the event, on the YDN blog. See these and other submitted hacks on the Hack Tracker.

This year’s Hackers’ Choice Award went to 'I’m bored'. Designed for when you’re on the go, the app picks up your location and maps events and activities around you. It restricts the radius, and also gives you the time the activity is going to begin. It was built by the team “Null Pointers” in answer to the question, “What do you do if you’re 27, single and have so much free time that you flop down and say, “I’m bored!?”

The place was crackling with energy and music, as music station Radio Indigo (91.9 fm) broadcast live from the venue through the 24-hour hackathon. Several folks went on air to play their song and talk about the event. Many developers present, like Madhurima Malla, have attended back-to-back Open Hacks. “It’s great to see the range of ideas. The demos are amazing, and I look forward to finding out what my fellow hackers have ‘imagined’ and built each year. That always brings me back.”

See photos.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced that it has appointed Marissa Mayer as President and Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors effective July 17, 2012. The appointment of Ms. Mayer, a leading consumer internet executive, signals a renewed focus on product innovation to drive user experience and advertising revenue for one of the world's largest consumer internet brands, whose leading properties include Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Search.

Mayer said, "I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the Company's dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world."

Most recently, Mayer was responsible for Local, Maps, and Location Services for Google, the company's suite of local and geographical products including Google Maps, Google Earth, Zagat, Street View, and local search, for desktop and mobile. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as its 20th employee and led efforts for many of Google's most recognizable products, including the development of its flagship search product and iconic homepage for over 10 years. Mayer managed some of Google's most successful innovations, launching more than 100 features and products including image, book and product search, toolbar, iGoogle, Google News, and Gmail — creating much of the "look and feel" of the Google user experience.

Yahoo! Co-Founder David Filo said, "Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley's most exciting strategists in technology development. I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo's product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors."

"The Board of Directors unanimously agreed that Marissa's unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo! at this time of enormous opportunity," said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Mayer received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, specializing in artificial intelligence for both degrees. She is credited as an inventor on several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design.

"Yahoo!'s products will continue to enhance our partnerships with advertisers, technology and media companies, while inspiring and delighting our users. There is a lot to do and I can't wait to get started," Mayer said.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! is a technology-powered media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. Yahoo!'s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.net) or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).

Marissa Mayer Biographical Information

Marissa Mayer was most recently Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services at Google where she oversaw product management, engineering, design and strategy for the company's suite of local and geographical products, including Google Maps, Google Earth, Zagat, Street View, and local search, for desktop and mobile. She also curated the Google Doodle program, celebrating special events on Google's homepage around the world.

During her 13 years at Google, Marissa held numerous positions, including engineer, designer, product manager, and executive, and launched more than 100 well-known features and products. She played an instrumental role in Google search, leading the product management effort for more than 10 years, a period during which Google Search grew from a few hundred thousand to well over a billion searches per day. Marissa led the development of some of Google's most successful services including image, book and product search, toolbar, and iGoogle, and defined such pivotal products as Google News and Gmail. She is listed as an inventor on several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design.

Joining as the company's first female engineer in 1999, Marissa played an important role in developing Google's culture. Her contributions included overseeing the look-and-feel of the company's iconic homepage and founding the Associate Product Manager program, which has hired over 300 of the company's future leaders and is considered the industry's ideal standard in transforming new computer science graduates into executive leaders.

Prior to joining Google, Marissa worked at the UBS research lab in Zurich, Switzerland and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. She graduated with honors from Stanford University with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and a M.S. in Computer Science. For both degrees, she specialized in artificial intelligence. While at Stanford, she taught computer programming to more than 3000 students and received the Centennial Teaching and Forsythe Awards for her contributions to undergraduate education. In 2008, the Illinois Institute of Technology awarded her an honorary doctorate of engineering.

She has been honored with the Matrix Award by the New York Women in Communications, as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and as "Woman of the Year" by Glamour magazine. For four years running, Fortune has named her one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, including when at age 33 she was the youngest woman ever included on the list.

Marissa serves on the board of directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. She is also on the board of various non-profits, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Ballet, and the New York City Ballet.

Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Yahoo!

Dana Lengkeek, 415-994-4008

danal@yahoo-inc.com

Source: Yahoo!
http://pressroom.yahoo.net/pr/ycorp/236553.aspx

Why do Yahoos love coming to work? What makes their world rock and their hearts bleed purple? Hear out Yahoos as they tell you their stories of working and growing with this organization.