JS-Kit Making Yahoo More Competitive with Facebook Connect?

JS-Kit is furthering it's data portability capabilities by partnering with Yahoo this week. With this partnership, JS-Kit gets another boost for expanding its tactful approach to cross-network ratings and comments, while Yahoo receives another integrated way in which to reach hundreds of thousands more developers and extend even more functionality to the developers working on its Open Platform. The significance of Yahoo's partnership with JS-Kit is that it makes Yahoo even more of a viable competitor to Facebook, specifically Facebook Connect. While Yahoo's initial release of its Open Strategy made us think that it's approach is quite the Facebook Connect competitor, the addition of JS-Kit as a partner raises the ante. That's because in teaming up with JS-Kit and operating outside of a network such as Facebook's, Yahoo's Open Strategy becomes far more "open." Developers using Y!OS are not limited to connecting data between their existing site and only Facebook, but can take part in a more vast cross-network that JS-Kit has been building up for some time. With a reported 600,000 developers using JS-Kit for ratings, comments, and in turn leveraging this cross-network approach, the potential reach for a given developer, publisher or end user is increased a significant amount. And for JS-Kit, the partnership with Yahoo is only the latest stop on the ongoing journey. JS-Kit recently launched compatibility with Facebook Connect as well as Open I.D., making it more encompassing in its implementation. Aside from these recent updates, JS-Kit already works with AOL, Evite, and Sun Microsystems, to name a few other partners. JS-Kit is truly working towards becoming a powerhouse in its industry, and has readily accepted the benefits of partnering with several sites in order to survive the waning startup climate, expand, and provided added value to publishers, developers and site visitors. Could this be the boost Yahoo has been looking for? In taking on an Open Platform strategy, Yahoo has been working on unifying its many sites and applications, looking to become what Nick has pointed out as a software distributor, encouraging developers to build on its Open Platform and give end users a manageable and singular web "existence" across things like Yahoo Mail, Updates, IM, Toolbar and more. It's an effort that Yahoo has been speaking about and working towards for quite some time, especially in relation to Yahoo Mail and the socialization of much of the content that's run through its long-established network. Facebook Connect has taken the lead on the shared content initiative, and has thus been at the forefront of many related discussions. But Yahoo is, at the very least, broadening the perspective of such discussions by expanding its Open Strategy features for developers.

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JS-Kit Making Yahoo More Competitive with Facebook Connect?

Kristen Nicole

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Kristen Nicole