To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39167533,00.htm

Developers hack web apps with BBC, Yahoo!
'Hack Day' spurs inventiveness

By Reuters

Published: Monday 18 June 2007

At first glance it is not immediately obvious why a sewing machine, handbag and pedometer would be useful to engineers at internet giant Yahoo! but organisers say anything goes at 'Hack Day'.

The event is a series of open days held around the world by Yahoo! for anyone such as computer programmers and developers to attend and come up with new innovative applications.

The latest event has been held over the last 24 hours in London, staged by Yahoo! and the BBC for anyone to develop new projects that use either of the media group's programs.

After a series of in-house events in 2005, Yahoo! opened the day to the public. The first winners in 2006 were a team who made a handbag with a camera phone and pedometer, which sent photographs to Yahoo! picture-sharing site Flickr after every 100 steps.

Yahoo!'s Chad Dickerson said: "That just illustrates the whole spontaneity of the event. You never know what you will get."

Dickerson said the idea to allow developers and programmers to use Yahoo! technology had developed a sense of goodwill toward the company and resulted in ideas Yahoo! staff would never have thought of.

The day is a mixture of a web programming competition and an overnight slumber party. Few of the contestants sleep but this year's event had an added twist when the venue, Alexandra Palace, was hit twice by lightning.

While no one was hurt organisers said it did cause the fire alarm system to briefly open the roof of the venue, leaving the more than 400 participants at Hack Day working under large umbrellas.

One guest said: "We had to start talking to each other."