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When Internet technologies companies fight, customers win. With Apple and Google developing their own apps, it is irritating for users to download different ones for different devices, on the one hand, and time-consuming for developers, on the other.
Yahoo! has come out with an answer to end these annoying gated communities over the Web. It has launched Cocktails — literally a cocktail of platforms such as HTML5, Node.JS, CSS3 and JavaScript — to help users switch between these gated communities on the Web.
Just a few weeks into its existence, Cocktails has generated huge interest among app developers across the globe as they can target virtually every smart device — be it on Android (Google), iOS5 (Apple) or Windows 7.
“Develop an application on this platform, you can virtually launch your app on any other platform,” Mr Hari Vasudev, Vice-President of Yahoo!, told Business Line .
This would save those young techies working out of their study rooms or garages a lot of time, energy and investments. Moreover, they will get access to virtually all smart gadgets without having to replicate their work on different platforms.
Yahoo! itself used this platform to build Livestand for Apple's iPad. Launched for iPad users in the US, Livestand has emerged as one of the most downloaded apps. Livestand is a kind of digital bookshelf where one can hand-pick magazines one wants to read and follow. At least four users can log in to the app on a single device and each one can have their own set of reading choices.
Livestand soon in India
The Internet technology major is planning to launch Livestand app in India in the next few months. The company is working on a project to make it available on gadgets other than tablets.
Meanwhile, the company is building associations with local publishing firms to offer digital content to its users.
“We are already offering content in Hindi, Tamil and Marathi with tie-ups with newspaper organisations in the respective languages. We will expand this further. We will release an app optimised for mobile phones in January,” Mr Hari said.
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