Yahoo Shortcuts & WordPress

by Jeremy Schoemaker on December 13, 2007 · 50 comments

Today Yahoo announced Yahoo shortcuts for wordpress blogs. And many good WordPress soldiers are blogging about it today.. Amazing many commercial things are made every day for wordpress… yet you dont see the WordPress staff bloggers (that are embeded in your wordpress software) writing about them… hrmm must just be a coincidence…


Matt Mullenweg

Weblogtools collection
Alex King

(or you can just look at your word press dashboard to see this spammed to hell)

Any chance we could get full disclosure on the financial agreements since you guys are so mighty on being the clean bloggers and all that…

Is it me or is it weird that just not so long ago wordpress was taking this huge stand against text links and now they are in full support of a company that does text links AND removes your editorial control from them (to some degree). Well I guess they were not getting a cut of that money.

But lets take a look at what it does…. It underlines your links that could goto products (like kontera or intellitxt) then you can add a widgetbox of shopping comparison. (like shoppingads or widgetbucks).

Wow thats pretty cool… So what do you get for making Yahoo! and wordpress money? A FREE T-SHIRT! WOOT!!!!!

Good for Yahoo! for finally jumping in and making a run at manipulating the open source industry. Just when you thought Google had the lock on it.

About the author...

– who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

Images provided by ShutterStock


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{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }

1 roger December 13, 2007 at 9:47 pm

Nice call out.

Everyone knows the reason they been sucking up to Google and Yahoo! was they are looking for big partnerships from them… can you blame them?

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2 Affiliate Confession December 13, 2007 at 10:33 pm

Yea, it’skind of nice, but can we monetize it? I do like the ability to add maps, that’s cool.

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3 Jack December 13, 2007 at 10:56 pm

HA!

There need to be more candid SEM bloggers unafraid to talk shit when it is needed. This is ridiculous.

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4 Web Cosmo December 13, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Nothing is impossible in Business and War. That was a very smart move from Yahoo trying to gain more ground in the search marketing field. Idea behind is great. I think it would be greatly appreciated by many bloggers.

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5 Kiley December 13, 2007 at 11:16 pm

Matt, you little tree-hugging douche bag! Why am I not surprised.

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6 Chris Jacobson December 13, 2007 at 11:29 pm

The plugin gives me an error when trying to review the post. I guess that’s one of the bugs in Beta.

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7 blackyard.net December 13, 2007 at 11:44 pm

Yahoo is taking a swipe at Google’s dominance, which is currently waning following their de-ranking policy on text link sales. but they should be more candid on how this plugin intends to benefit bloggers.

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8 craig December 13, 2007 at 11:49 pm

Either Wordpress is getting paid …. or they are just lining Yahoo!’s pockets

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9 LGR December 14, 2007 at 12:06 am

I thought I was cynical about the whole thing. Nice to see someone call a spade a spade.

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10 Blackysky December 14, 2007 at 12:11 am

I don’t understand the move !!!! if bloggers won’t get a penny .. why bloggers should feed yahoo for free or for a t-shirt ???? I hope the final version will add something more …..
the plugin looks nice

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11 Anon December 14, 2007 at 12:31 am

My main gripes about wordpress is #1 – they update too often and see to have as many security holes as windows…. and #2 – they don’t seem to be doing enough to combat people that steal/scrape other peoples content. And, I think Matt’s ego has grown way too much.

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12 Anon December 14, 2007 at 12:36 am

Wow.. I just watched their demo and they MUST be smoking some good Canadian weed. Yeah, where can I download this plugin and give out free links to Yahoo!? Where can I sign up? LOL

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13 Jack December 14, 2007 at 12:39 am

This just turns your blog into what Yahoo Mail has made your inbox. Useless links and ads popping up for every keyword in the damn email I’m trying to read.

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14 lyricsreg December 14, 2007 at 1:10 am

A pathetic attempt from yahoo to try “get involved” in the blogger world

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15 Jacky Supit December 14, 2007 at 1:44 am

funny, from all those 3 links listed on my dashboard, this Jeremy post is the only one i read. :)

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16 Rhys December 14, 2007 at 2:21 am

Think is, how do you pronounce Matt Mulledwineageg’s last name?

Me no likey him.

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17 Contest Beat December 14, 2007 at 2:47 am

Hahahahahah – a free t-shirt!

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18 Matt December 14, 2007 at 3:18 am

1. I/Automattic/WordPress get no money from Yahoo for anything related to Shortcuts or this plugin.

2. I blogged about it because I thought it was cool they launched on WP exclusively vs the hundreds of other content platforms. Also some things like the Flickr feature are downright useful.

3. You could have found out the above by asking myself or Yahoo.

Kiley and Rhys above, ouch. Go easy, I screw up plenty but this is not one of those times.

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19 ShoeMoney December 14, 2007 at 3:39 am

dude I remember email you about something exclusive to wordpress and got no response….

All of these things are commercial for Yahoo! including flickr

As I said above your either getting paid or you are lining yahoo!’s pockets

I use wordpress…. I love it… and I have no issue with what you guys are doing. I am a capitalist too.

Also your comment that you were excited they choose wordpress vs other platforms… seriously? what else would they choose? blogger? you have 100x the marketshare of anything else

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20 Rhys December 14, 2007 at 7:00 am

Oops, the dangers of being slightly inhebriated when blogging. I apologise :)

Sensible comment:

Whilst it looks cool, I do share some concerns that shoe does, that shortcuts are making Yahoo money, with no return for yourself. I also don’t like the fact that – from the looks of it – it’s an “Opt Out” system (it scans your content and adds a link first, you choose to then remove the link should you don’t want it), it just seems rather sneaky (correct me if I’m wrong, of course).

Best of luck with it, but when somebody creates one that uses something like Amazon Affiliates, I’ll probably be more interested in that ;)

Still, I agree that the flickr thing could be cool :)

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21 jim December 14, 2007 at 7:13 am

Man i hate these types of ads…

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22 Mark December 14, 2007 at 7:40 am

Shoe, you could have emailed me if you had any questions or doubts. I did not receive any money to write about this plugin nor will I have any financial transactions with Yahoo! over this plugin. This is just another cool new tool for WordPress and that is why it shows up on the blog.

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23 Kiley December 14, 2007 at 7:51 am

Someone is making money. Bottom line. We aren’t stupid, Matt. You’ll never come clean, thats a given.

Wordpress must not be keeping the lights on.

eh?

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24 Bathroom Hero December 14, 2007 at 7:58 am

Give bloggers get a cut of the advertising revenue!

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25 Hustle Strategy December 14, 2007 at 8:07 am

nope, money talks…

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26 Famous Quotes December 14, 2007 at 8:20 am

A free T-shirt! Ha ha ha; I am still laughing.

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27 tracy ho December 14, 2007 at 8:39 am

Thanks for your sharing,

to your success,
Tracy Ho
wisdomgettingloaded

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28 bochgoch December 14, 2007 at 8:42 am

Crappy intrusive ads for a free t-shirt — nah, count me out …

How long before Google penalise sites with these Yahoo links? … they’ve go to find someone to pick on after kicking the crap out of TLA carrying sites…

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29 Hyder December 14, 2007 at 9:00 am

When they give me a cut of the revenue generated, that’s when I’ll install the Shortcut.

Otherwise, fuggedaboudit!

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30 Joeychgo December 14, 2007 at 9:15 am

its about time Yahoo made SOME kind of move.

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31 Scorpiono December 14, 2007 at 10:14 am

Like alinks plugin?

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32 Think Like An SOB December 14, 2007 at 10:33 am

‘Tis the season of giving. Lets take out our Kontera ads, and our Amazon products widgets and give to Yahoo and WP.

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33 Jon Symons December 14, 2007 at 11:39 am

I love the sample post about HP printers….no this isn’t about money at all. LOL Heck most WordPress bloggers are writing almost exclusively about printers, laptops, digital cameras…all the hottest topics.

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34 SEOMaster December 14, 2007 at 11:45 am

Thanks for the articles and comments. It`s really help me for my work :)

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35 Tim December 14, 2007 at 1:30 pm

There’s never a free lunch is there? One can only hope that Joomal!, Drupal, MySQL, PHP, and Linux never get into that game. Perhaps the lesson here is–create your own apps if you want to dictate your own terms.

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36 James B. December 14, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Nope can’t blame them.

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37 James B. December 14, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Getting Paid.

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38 James B. December 14, 2007 at 5:34 pm

Yahoo is going down the drain.

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39 James B. December 14, 2007 at 5:34 pm

LOL. I no know.

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40 James B. December 14, 2007 at 5:35 pm

ARE YOU SURE???

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41 Mike Huang December 14, 2007 at 7:52 pm

A free t-shirt…yummiee

-Mike

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42 Lea December 14, 2007 at 9:53 pm

Amazon already does the links in content thing :)

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43 Reverse Funnel System December 15, 2007 at 6:22 pm

Thats very interesting article.

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44 Affiliate Unleashed December 16, 2007 at 10:38 pm

A T-Shirt? Lame……….

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45 Ariel Seidman December 17, 2007 at 3:01 am

Let me clarify two things:
1.) Yahoo did not pay Wordpress anything for this plugin.
2.) We were a client of Alex King and the Crowd Favorite team — they did an awesome job — and in Alex’s blog post about the plugin he openly states that Yahoo! was a client of CrowdFavorite.

Now about the plugin — many thanks for all of your feedback. We are still in Beta so were still working out some of the issues, but its worth noting a few things:
a.) Providing bloggers control on which Shortcuts they want or don’t want was a key design principle. Its your blog and your content and so if you want a Map or Flickr image, but don’t want a Product review then you can remove that. Furthermore, you can remove all of the Shortcuts with one click if none of the recommended Shortcuts make sense for a specific post.
b.) Monetization: there are lots of advertising based solutions out there for bloggers and publishers. If you want a primarily advertising based solution then this is not the product for you. Hopefully we can make the process of finding and integrating relevant content (like Flickr images, maps, etc.) into your blog easier and less time consuming.
Thanks,
-Ariel Seidman
Yahoo! Search

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46 Keith Cash December 17, 2007 at 3:34 pm

Dude, great headsup. I am currently working with them on my s513 blog. Very cool plug-ins.

Thanks a lot

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47 K Fitzwell March 5, 2008 at 10:03 am

It’s hard to understand how wordpress could take such a firm stand against text links and do an about face like that.

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48 CATAHИCT April 9, 2009 at 11:21 pm

Автор, а у вас никто статьи не тырит с сайта? А то у меня достали уже – копируют и копируют. И самое главное, что ссылку на мой сайт никто не удосужится поставить.

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