New Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin

One of my favorite features of Yahoo! Mail is that little hover that shows a map when you mouseover an address. There are bunch of those actions and in most cases they make Mail more useful.

Now there’s a way to add those things to your blog. The new Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin for wordpress helps you insert those things. I’m not sure how often I’ll use them, but I installed the plugin to see.

Off the bat, I’m not in love with the Yahoo! Search ones (don’t seem to add much value – a link to search?) and I’m not sure why I’d link to Yahoo Shopping when there’s no revshare program in place. I like the flickr integration, you can very easily add pictures. It’s slick.

On the negative side, it’s a beta, and buggy – I can’t remove ones from this post that I don’t like without editing the HTML – I’ll report that to the team. Also, I’d love a way to say “I never want Search Links”. Looking to the future, I’d love it if this opened up, so amazon could write a plugin to replace Y! Shopping.

If you use WordPress, check it out.

UPDATE: I neglected to say that I think this is all pretty cool and nice for a first cut. I’m excited about where this can go. And BTW, I saw a demo yesterday of something in a similar vein and I can only hope Yahoo keeps building these add-ons that make our blogging life easier.

And now here is a list of things hoping to trigger the shortcuts:

  • Yahoo! Inc – YHOO
  • 500 3rd St., San Francisco, CA
  • Nikon D-80
  • Please buy this for me: 2008 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class SL55 AMG Roadster
  • Barack Obama

5 thoughts on “New Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin”

  1. Your comments are pretty much in line with my criticisms of it. I think the flickr option is, by far, the most valuable part of the plugin, but it’s a bit buggy in the way it displays the CC attribution info. (Huge space underneath).
    The opt-out of search links was the first thing that came to mind when I fired it up on my post last night, but for an initial release, I’d say it’s pretty well implemented.
    The only frustrating thing is the latent HTML code that stays in your post even if you deactivate the shortcut.
    I’d use the badge version of the Shopping shortcut in a heartbeat if they had some sort of affiliate program (like Amazon associates) in place.

    And I’ll make you deal: I’ll get you the Mercedes after I make my first billion. K?

  2. Jenn, I’ll take you up on the deal. I’ll take the car in either silver or black. I can’t wait for you to become a billionaire! I’m rooting for you.

  3. Gee I just got a letter stating “You may already have won ONE MILLION Dollars” I’ll just send you the check if I can get a ride. HEHEHEHEHE

    Pop

  4. Went to my WordPress location to do the plugin thing and couldn’t got the following when I tried to find plugin info.
    From WordPress FAQ

    Where is my plugins tab?
    Unfortunately, there isn’t one to be found!

    For various reasons we do not permit the uploading and use of plugins here at wordpress.com.

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