Yahoo! Hack Day: Beyond Beckspectations

I’ve spent the last 24 hours at Yahoo! HQ in Sunnyvale, camped out in the Yahoo! cafeteria watching hundreds of non-Yahoo! hackers work franticly to put together a demo in 24 hours using Yahoo! technology.  I’ve participated (and written about, see here and here) Yahoo!’s quarterly internal hack days.  But this is the first time that Yahoo! has thrown open its door to allow anyone to come in  (and by anyone, yes, I suppose that would include last night’s "surprise" stage performance by Beck!).

Blogosphere echo chamber coverage has been pretty heavy (and deservedly so)…but here is some of my favorite media to come out of the event so far:

• Photos: Laughing Squid takes the cake so far
• Video: Yahoo!’s "official" coverage, complete with the hilarious video that Beck and team put together and played during the show (note: PG-13 haha)
• Yahoo! vs eBay Comparison: Phil Wolff
• Title of Article: Greg Cohn wins.  But you need to watch the "official coverage" video above to get it. 
• Basic Overview: Perhaps the best of all of these…Beck’s puppeteer speaks

Once again, thanks Chad and Bradley.  You guys have outdone yourselves.  The energy and excitement all weekend have been incredible.

I’m looking forward to seeing all the hackers demo their work, which will begin in T-minus 9 minutes…Michael Arrington (the MC for the demo presentations) is already in the house…

UPDATE: There’s another link worth checking out: Bradley’s.  Actually, I am sure that there are many more to check out, but Bradley, the executive sponsor for Hack Day and YDN, really sums up the overall impact of the event.  Unlike many posts (like mine) written on Friday night or Saturday morning as a post-Beck geek-out, Bradley waited until yesterday to post and was able to truly capture the full magnitude of Hack Day.  For a company like Yahoo! to literally open itself up, and for the obvious executive buy-in that is necessary for an event of this magnitude, it means that the dynamics of the internet and of media in general truly are changing even at the highest levels.  And that’s damn exciting!

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