Good news from Yahoo!, by means of… email? Sweet. Let’s dig this out. This morning at 0.30, I’ve received an email sent by the Fleishman Hillard agency for Yahoo! that enthousiastically informed me of the Maps API that has been launched little over a week ago. Apart from the API news, there are some other remarks I’d like to add.
I’m honored to be informed about this in such a personal way and I can imagine I ended up in your database because of the ‘toolbar’ incident that happened a little while ago, although I can’t remember being in contact with any representative of Yahoo!, but only with John Dowdell
from Macromedia Support, who misspelled my name to be CoolZor.
A weird and remarkable typo I find also in the mail from Fleishman Hillard. Dear Miss Smith : it’s Coolz0r. With a zero. As in the url of the blog. The least you could do is to please get my nickname right.
But ok. Let’s get passed that.
What I’m wondering about is how it comes that Yahoo! sends me personalized informative advertisement through an international communications agency, with the same typo Mister John Dowdell from Macromedia used. Did they just pick it up on the web? Or are both Macromedia and Yahoo! customers to the same agency and does this agency have a shared database for client data?
The fact Yahoo! is outsourcing it’s PR and marketing communication to a respectable agency is remarkable, but not unexpected. Most international companies have external boards of advisors or agencies that take over a specific part of the marketing or PR. It shows of a professional approach, but that is something Yahoo!’s always had throughout their history.
See, to me it would have made more sense being informed about some Macromedia products, because of the flash-player thing. It’s nothing personal to Yahoo!, because I would have been just as frustrated if it was a Google toolbar or for that matter, any other company’s toolbar.
I hate it when I get things I don’t sign up for. And yes, Miss Smith, I can understand that this email is of another degree than regular promotional email. But if I sign up myself, at least my name is spelled correctly.
I hope to hear more good news from Yahoo! (or Macromedia) from your part, as I expect to be enlisted in an informative mailing list from now on, otherwise I’d be very disappointed to have received the first spam mail ever for side-products of a widely known and respected search engine.
Hi CoolZor
It truly is SUPER easy to place your content onto Yahoo! Maps.
In just a little over a week since the Yahoo! Maps API has been available,
users have created a number of interesting, useful overlays.
Check out the below links to see it yourself!
The Yahoo! Maps open API is based on geoRSS,
a RSS 2.0 with w3c geo extension. It’s free, stable, backward
compatible and easy to use for anyone.
For more information
check out developer.yahoo.net/maps or contact me at 415-***-****.
And feel free to share your Yahoo! Maps creations with us!
[Yahoo! News overlaid on a Map of the US]
[ A crime-map for Potrero Hill in San Francisco]
[A map of San Diego Bloggers]
[Milwaukee community generated neighborhood map]
Best,
Colleen Smith
Fleishman Hillard for Yahoo!