Yahoo! Search is Opening Up
This entry was posted on 2/26/2008 3:33 PM and is filed under Yahoo.
Yesterday Yahoo posted an announcement about a new enhancement to their search product.
Today, Amit Kumar presented this evolution at SMX West.
The new focus is on completing tasks. Relevant media, task oriented links, Structured data. The ranking in SERPS remains that same, but the results are more focused based on what the site owner believes the user is trying to do. It can provide additional links directly on the SERP, ratings, sending links, products, media etc. Instead of having the engines 'guess', we can use our knowledge of what the user needs.
The features and enhancements are app based. There will be data feeds and information providers give to Yahoo! via the apps to which site owners can gain access, add their listings and create better SERPs for their users. These feeds may be third party ratings, product reviews, media etc. The site owners can turned these feeds on / off. Just how this will be shall be announced over time in the near future.
A question on Yahoo!'s commitment to this came up: What if publishers push forward only to have Yahoo! pull the plug. Amit pointed to the overall commitment to the open platform as an indication of it's seriousness and support.
Question on timing. Since we are a closed group and won't blog about it. 
But...
App Prototype development can take about 1/2 day. If you put it on your own listing, it can go live quickly. (Sony puts a product app for Sony.com) If it is open to others to add to their site, then the app will be submitted to an approval process (Sony's app used by retailers).
Just some thoughts. Think about Auto manufactures providing review feeds, spec feeds, images, or video. Theses feeds can be provided as a Yahoo! app that dealers can then add to their listings. Any product manufacturer can do this. Menus for restaurant chains? Product reviews from Consumer Reports? This really opens up great information access at very relevant times. These data sets, media, and other information can be used by many sites, and the providers of the information gain exposure and traffic. This is a great tool for the site publishers and for consumers.
If the information is bogus, users will have the ability to report abuses
