Facebook Set To Unveil “Hyper PHP”

A PHP project that's been underway for about two years is finally going to bear fruit for Facebook.  Reports indicate that the company is set to announce the creation of "Hyper PHP" (or HPHP) today, and that Facebook will see speed improvements of around 80 percent as a result.

This trick relates to Web development, and more specifically, bridging the gap between interpreted languages and compiled languages.  Hyper PHP is supposed to combine their strengths and more or less escape their weaknesses.

Mike Melanson explained, "PHP is normally an interpreted language, which means that every time a user accesses a PHP page, the server needs to take the code and interpret it to produce the final product.  A compiler, however, makes this process much quicker, as the code is interpreted before the user ever asks for the page.  The problem here is that any time that page needs to be changed, the code needs to be recompiled."

Hyper PHP should represent a major turning point, then.  What's more, it doesn't look like Facebook will be the only beneficiary.  The social network is due to make Hyper PHP available on an open source basis, so all sorts of sites may get speed boosts in the end.

We'll update this post with more information when it becomes available.

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Facebook Set To Unveil “Hyper PHP”

A PHP project that's been underway for about two years is finally going to bear fruit for Facebook.  Reports indicate that the company is set to announce the creation of "Hyper PHP" (or HPHP) today, and that Facebook will see speed improvements of around 80 percent as a result.

This trick relates to Web development, and more specifically, bridging the gap between interpreted languages and compiled languages.  Hyper PHP is supposed to combine their strengths and more or less escape their weaknesses.

Mike Melanson explained, "PHP is normally an interpreted language, which means that every time a user accesses a PHP page, the server needs to take the code and interpret it to produce the final product.  A compiler, however, makes this process much quicker, as the code is interpreted before the user ever asks for the page.  The problem here is that any time that page needs to be changed, the code needs to be recompiled."

Hyper PHP should represent a major turning point, then.  What's more, it doesn't look like Facebook will be the only beneficiary.  The social network is due to make Hyper PHP available on an open source basis, so all sorts of sites may get speed boosts in the end.

We'll update this post with more information when it becomes available.

UPDATE: The official announcement and explanation are now available.

Have You Read This?

> Facebook Page Owners Getting More Stats

> Facebook Gets Into Customized Data Centers

> Facebook Becomes Sponsor Of Apache Software Foundation

Yahoo Go To Get The Boot

Yahoo Go, a mobile application that links users to a number of different services (including mail, news, and weather), is going to cease doing much of anything in the near future.  Yahoo has decided to concentrate its mobile efforts elsewhere.

In an email sent to Yahoo Go users, the company announced, "Yahoo! Go will be discontinued on January 12, 2010, at 12:00 a.m. PST, so that we may focus on simplifying and enhancing your future mobile Web experiences.  After this date, you will no longer be able to use Yahoo! Go 2.0 or 3.0 from your mobile phone."

The email then plugged Yahoo Go's effective replacement, m.yahoo.com, continuing, "We encourage you to visit the new mobile homepage from your mobile browser to access an even richer, more personalized Yahoo! experience."

This move makes a great deal of sense for Yahoo.  Yahoo Go's more than a little basic compared to all of the smartphone-optimized stuff that's now available, meaning most phone owners have almost surely given up on it already.  And those that haven't will be forced to by dying hardware sooner or later, anyway.

Yahoo Go joins a long list of Yahoo products and services that have recently been closed for the sake of conserving resources, including Briefcase, FareChase, and Geocities.

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Google Ad Planner Gets Several New Enhancements

Google has released several new features for Google Ad Planner. Google says these are aimed at providing a more granular view of where your audience can be found. Features include subdomain data, ad placements, and reach and relevance at a glance.

When Google says reach and relevance at a glance, it is referring to a new interactive graph feature, which lets advertisers see which sites in their plan provide the best reach and relevance.

"In its default setting, the graph will compare sites in your search results by audience reach and composition index," explains Google's Katrina Kurnit. "Sites with the most reach will appear in the top-left quadrant. Sites with the most relevance will appear in the bottom-right quadrant. Sites near the top-right quadrant will have the best combination of both reach and relevance."

Users can customize the graph in a number of different ways. The feature is discussed in more detail on this page.

 Google has added subdomain data that gives you more detailed views of sites. It can help users refine their media plan by providing more info on specific pages. It lets usres search for subdomains, view the top subdomains based on total domain traffic for a site, view traffic, demographics and other data for the subdomain itself, and add subdomains to their media plan.

The Ad Placements feature consists of specific sections of a site where advertising can be purchased. This feature allows advertisers to review placement data for sites in the Google Content Network, and beta test publishers using Google Ad Manager. Google says more placement data will be coming soon.

Google says publishers and site owners can now use Google Ad Planner to share more Google Analytics data points like page views, unique visitors, total visits, average visits per visitor, and average time on site.

Have You Read This?

> New Google Tool Benefits Both AdWords and AdSense Users

> Google Improves Traffic Estimation with Ad Planner

> Google Launches New Ad Planner