Okay, so Facebook a major news site now ?

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Budi Putra in Media

Facebook is now the fourth largest source of traffic to news and media sites, according to data crunched by Hitwise. “I always knew it would happen, but not this quickly,” my friend Alan Soon wrote.

Updates on Yahoo! Meme: New popular page, dashboard

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Budi Putra in Tech

Yahoo! Meme just updated and tweaked some features as below:

- a new popular page with more content and options! (Yep, finding the best reposts of all time is now wonderfully uncomplicated). 
- the omnipresent dashboard (now you can post from anywhere inside meme!). 
- dozens of design and interface tweaks and changes (find all the changes, we’ll give you a bone).

[Disclosure: I am working at Yahoo!]

Yahoo’s strategy for the Social Web in 2010

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Budi Putra in Tech

GigaOM wrote an interesting piece about Yahoo’s social web strategy for 2010, based on interview with Cody Simms (Director of Product Management for the Yahoo application platform) and Chris Yeh (head of the Yahoo developer network) recently.

Some key points:

Yahoo wants to aggregate its users’ activities from around the web. The Facebook Connect integration is the first in a string of coming deals with other social sites.

What about integrating with Yahoo’s own services? Yahoo Updates would be the center of Yahoo’s new open social strategy, which consists of activity streams shown in Yahoo Mail, on its front page, in Yahoo Messenger clients and on its toolbars.

Right now the people you see in your Updates are those with whom you have explicit Yahoo Connections. Next the company will add in your Mail and Messenger contacts.

Yahoo plans to start allowing comments on its incredibly popular News, Finance and Sports sites.

[Diclosure: I'm working at Yahoo!]

Meme post says it all

Posted on December 22, 2009 by Budi Putra in Tech

Since Yahoo! Meme was much more focused on images, I found that commenting on any language would be cool and hopefully not bother other followers. Because image or photo itself says it all — yeah, that’s a universal language. For instance, despite I don’t understand what the image’s comment on the above Meme’s post said, when I reposted it, I just put new comment in Bahasa Indonesia which is related to a certain local context. No problem at all. That’s only happen on Meme :-)

What’s Meme?

From Yahoo!

“Meme is where you share everything you find that’s interesting”.

From Wikipedia:

A meme (pronounced /mim/, rhyming with “cream”) is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.

Disclosure: I work for Yahoo!

So I’m joining Yahoo! now

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Budi Putra in Tech

After more than 2.5 years working as a full-time blogger and running a Jakarta-based blogging company called Asia Blogging Network, now I’m joining Yahoo! I was recently appointed as Country Editor for Yahoo! Indonesia, and will be based in Singapore for 6-12 months while setting-up Indonesia’s office.

Why did I accept this offer? Of course, it’s so challenging. This role is also still in-line with my passion: engaging with online content and community. My responsibilities including to engage and work with local content partners as well as writers and bloggers. It means that I will keep engaging and meeting with all of you, my fellow bloggers and readers :-) As the role’s name suggests — the Country Editor — I will be much more working on news, columns, blogs etc for Yahoo! Indonesia site.

After left Tempo –Indonesia’s most respected news organization– more than two years ago, it’s nice that finally I will return back to the newsroom. This time Yahoo!’s newsroom. Despite I can’t blog for CNET Asia and SlashPhone (including PhoneMag and iPhoneBuzz) or contributing tech articles for The Jakarta Post anymore, but I will keep blogging for my personal blogs as well as greeting and seeing you through Twitter, Facebook or some other social media accounts. I will be starting my Yahoo tenure next week. Wish me luck with this new venture.