Yahoo! Lets You "Build Your Own Search Service", Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land (Jul 10)
Surely this announcement puts Yahoo in the lead in opening up search to new developers and some new and exciting custom-made applications.
"The Yahoo! Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) enables developers to access Yahoo! search results, combine them with other sources, rerank them, and define their appearance."
Mentions use of this by Hakia - "Hakia, for instance, is using the API to blend Yahoo! results with their own and runs all results through their proprietary algorithm SemanticRank. And they are displaying Yahoo!’s image results in a mashup with their own web index results. Neither Google nor Microsoft allow such flexibility, and both require branding of the search results."
For more details on hakia's use see hakia Joins Yahoo!’s Search BOSS
Also Yahoo seeks ad revenue by fueling others' search innovation By Stephen Shankland, Webware (Jul 9)
The revenue will be in the ads -
"The BOSS API (application programming interface) to Yahoo's search is free to use, but BOSS partners that succeed will be required to show search ads, said Prabhakar Raghavan, chief strategist for Yahoo Search.
"We fully expect it to expand the footprint of Yahoo search advertising on the Web," Raghavan said. "There is no payment of any kind we expect from partners, but we do say in the terms of service up front that over time we will require them as they build and grow out to use our search advertising." "
Posted by Gwen at July 11, 2008 02:22 PM