• On TV.com: Sexy summer bodies photo gallery
July 10, 2008 8:07 AM PDT

Yahoo! opens up its search to outside developers

by Matt Asay

Significant as its deal with Google on search may be, Yahoo!'s new BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) promises to be much bigger.

The goal of BOSS is simple: to foster innovation in the search industry. Developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to build and launch web-scale search products that utilize the entire Yahoo! Search index. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!'s investments in crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure. By combining your unique assets and ideas with our search technology assets, BOSS is a platform for the next generation of search innovation, serving hundreds of millions of users across the Web.

This is Really Big News. Why? Because Yahoo! is effectively enabling a whole host of partners...and competitors. "[D]evelopers and start-ups now have the technology and infrastructure to build next generation search solutions that can compete head-to-head with the principals in the search industry." Including, of course, Yahoo!.

Why do this? Because it makes Yahoo! the center of the search universe, to the extent that search is embedded in other services, rather than merely consumed. I could see Yahoo!'s search embedded into individual websites to foster better search, but I can also see new businesses being built upon it just as companies have built in Spring, Hibernate, and other open-source code into their products.

Nice move, Yahoo! Now we'll see if it pays.

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Recent posts from The Open Road
What soccer team would your company be?
Open-source licensing: Your mileage may vary
Open source to shape cloud computing, but not dominate it
Off-topic: Why can't I have this job?
Legalized drugs, now open source. Those crazy Dutch!
Will 'good enough' virtualization topple VMware?
Linux community codes around Microsoft's FAT patents
As Mozilla 'upgrades the Web,' Microsoft must upgrade its pace
Add a Comment (Log in or register) (3 Comments)
  • prev
  • 1
  • next
by raphinou July 11, 2008 1:58 AM PDT
If only their search results where as relevant as Google's:
http://blog.raphinou.com/2008/07/heres-why-google-is-search-leader.html

raph
Reply to this comment
by flickrz July 11, 2008 11:58 PM PDT
You obviously have not used yahoo glue pages. Search is subjective and google is no better at it. Plz stop spamming comments by your blog links in attempt to get eyeballs.
by flickrz July 11, 2008 11:57 PM PDT
Reply to this comment
(3 Comments)
  • prev
  • 1
  • next
advertisement

Making sense of Windows 7 upgrades

faq The basics and the fine print on Microsoft's options for those eyeing the next operating system from Redmond.
• Full Windows 7 coverage

Road Trip 2009: Big Sky Country

CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman takes his car full of gadgets to the Rockies and the Great Plains in search of tech, science, nature, and more.
• America's Fortress: Cheyenne Mountain

About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

Add this feed to your online news reader

The Open Road topics

advertisement
advertisement

Inside CNET News

Scroll Left Scroll Right