Re: Y! BOSS Search

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 07:12, Stewart Lord <stewey@ambitious.ca> wrote: > Using YQL you can query against microformats at a particular URL, but not > across an entire site. YQL also supports querying against a search.web > table, but it does not appear to expose any additional functionality over > and above what is provided by BOSS. In other words, it is also limited to > fulltext search. Err. Thats a shame. > The technology that TechCrunch used to build their custom search is called > "BOSS Custom" or "Vertical Lens" and does not appear to be publicly > available: > > "BOSS vertical lens is currently available to certain Yahoo! partners – but > we're working to share the technology more openly through the BOSS API. If > you are interested in building a search product using BOSS vertical lens > technology, please email us here." > > http://www.ysearchblog.com/2008/11/26/search-the-web-through-a-vertical-lens/ > > Not sure if we want to contact Yahoo or not. It sounds like the future of > BOSS is rather uncertain due to the Microsoft/Yahoo deal: > http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/07/yahoo-boss-doj/ "BOSS will continue to live on in some form, but it’s unclear exactly how things will be changing and which services will be powered by Microsoft technology — and there may be fees involved" Now that Microsoft is in the game, I don't think our friends at Y! can help us anymore - but we could ask? Or maybe we should just forget about using Y! ? -Hannes