Yahoo Approaches Outsiders to Build Software
Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo is inviting external developers to tweak its software to attract more online users, amid criticism from activist investor Carl Icahn for falling short to keep up with search leader Google in online search operations.
The Build Your Own Search Service, abbreviated as BOSS, will enable programmers to change the order as well as presentation of search query results, allowing them to build search engines customized to their own sites, said Yahoo. For example, a tailored search engine could highlight links to social networking domains such as Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, etc.
Yahoo is the second most widely used search engine service, and is trying hard to add even more users at the expense of its rival Google, which fields around three times the number of queries in the U.S.
Developers who create personalized search engines will be enabled to display ads next to search results in the coming few months, said Yahoo.
Director of Yahoo open search platform Bill Michels said that the company is trying to create ‘real innovation’ in search and disrupt the online market.
On the other side, Carl Icahn is desperate to replace Yahoo’s board at the company’s annual meeting scheduled on August 1. In fact, he has even vowed to fire chief executive Jerry Yang and enter discussions to sell Yahoo’s online search operations, or the entire company, to software giant Microsoft.
Michels confirmed that Yahoo is currently working with big-sized companies to create tailored search engines for their websites. The firm has also collaborated with educational institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University in order to research search technology.
In the current scenario, Google, Yahoo, as well as Microsoft provide software that allows users to tinker with their search engines. Google had launched its customizable search engine way back in October 2006, while software maker Microsoft provides search macros to create tailored search pages.
