Yahoo opens search toolkit
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - July 11, 2008 Yahoo will try to unleash the pent-up innovation Thursday with a
new service called "Build Your Own Search," or BOSS, that will
share the Sunnyvale-based company's technology with third parties.
That means any Web site will be able to assemble a search engine
using Yahoo's system for indexing information and images on the
Internet. Yahoo figures plenty of Web developers will be interested
because it's providing access to a set of tools that would cost
more than $300 million to build from scratch.
All Yahoo will seek in return is the right to display ads
alongside the results of any search engine that piggybacks on its
technology. That way, Yahoo figures it will lessen Google's
dominance.
Two specialty search services, Hakia and Me.dium, already have
agreed to participate in the BOSS program.
"Our goal is to disrupt the search market and allow more
entrants to come in," said Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo's chief
strategist for search.
But a payoff from the new service may not come soon enough to
extricate Yahoo from a shareholder revolt that could culminate in
the company's sale to Microsoft Corp., which also is scrambling to
catch up to Google in Internet search advertising.
Shareholders are upset with Yahoo's board, including Chief
Executive Jerry Yang, for rejecting a $47.5 billion takeover offer
from Microsoft, even though the company's stock had plummeted to a
four-year low shortly before the bid was first made.
Activist investor Carl Icahn is trying to persuade Yahoo
shareholders to oust the company's board so he can fire Yang as CEO
and revive sales negotiations with Microsoft. The shareholder vote
is scheduled Aug. 1 at Yahoo's annual meeting.
Yahoo is in hot water largely because it didn't keep pace with
Google, which was the smaller of the two companies as recently as
2005.
In a nod to Google's superior technology, Yahoo has decided to
allow its rival to sell some of the advertising on its own Web site
in an attempt to boost its revenue by $800 million annually. The
proposed partnership is expected to begin in the autumn if it's not
blocked by U.S. antitrust regulators.
Raghavan said Google won't be handling any of the advertising
deals that Yahoo picks up through the BOSS program.
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On The Net:
http://developer.yahoo.com/boss