Since launch, we've been focused on adding features and building up the ecosystem. We'll maintain that emphasis in 2009, as well as adding monetizing capabilities to the platform. Our plans have been driven by what we've heard from developers on our Yahoo! Group and at six hack days held around the world. We still have a great deal of work ahead, but the feedback we've received from the BOSS community has validated our hypothesis that there really was a need for a service like BOSS to help power innovation in search.

If you're interested in checking out what's been built using BOSS, here are a few places to look:

• Search Blog Posts on BOSS
• BOSS Mashable Challenge entrants
• Mashups tagged on Delicious
• TechCrunch Search

Thanks to everyone in the BOSS community for helping to make this happen and for being vocal about what we should be working on next. Keep it up!

Bill Michels
BOSS Team

--------------------------------
1comScore qSearch October 2008

The Yahoo! SearchMonkey team would like to congratulate our colleagues at Intel MashMaker, who have just received Argentina's Sodosky Award for Technology Innovation. As we've reported before, MashMaker is not only a powerful tool that enables non-programmers to extract semantic data from websites to create mashups, but you can also use MashMaker to rapidly create extractors for SearchMonkey applications. If you haven't tried using MashMaker and SearchMonkey together yet, you can download MashMaker, click on the little monkey icon and give it a try.

In related award news, we are pleased to announce that ReadWriteWeb has recognized SearchMonkey as one of its Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008 for "the best use of Semantic Web by an Internet bigco this year." We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb for the recognition, and congratulate all of our co-winners: Powerset, Calais, Dapper, Hakia (powered by Yahoo! Search BOSS), TripIt, BooRah, AdaptiveBlue, Zemanta and UpTake. We know we're in good company here and we look forward to making greater progress in 2009.

Evan Goer
Yahoo! SearchMonkey Team

Below is a quick snapshot of where you can find us:

Monday, December 8th
Time: 10:30 - 11:30 a.m.
Session: Universal & Blended Search
Description: This panel will discuss the idea of search multiplicity and recent advancements that will change the world of search and marketing. The talk will also include research data available only at SES.
Yahoo!: Dr. Larry Cornett, VP, Consumer Products, Yahoo! Search

Time: 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Session: Is There Life Beyond Google?
Description: This session will delve deep into the search engine market and explore a variety of alternative and specialty search engines that provide innovative features and attributes not readily available on Google.
Yahoo!: Dr. Larry Cornett, VP, Consumer Products, Yahoo! Search

Time: 4:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Session: Semantic Search: How Will it Change Our Lives?
Description: This panel will explore the new generation of semantic technologies and projections for how it will change the future of search. Additionally, the session will cover how consumers will benefit directly from new sets of Internet destinations.
Yahoo!: Dr. Larry Cornett, VP, Consumer Products, Yahoo! Search

Tuesday, December 9th
Time: 10:30 - 11:45 a.m.
Session: Link Building Basics
Description: This session will discuss link analysis as an important component for ranking web pages and go over how Webmasters can increase traffic by building quality links.
Yahoo!: Sharad Verma, Senior Product Manager, Yahoo! Search Technology

Time: 4:15 - 5:30 p.m.
Session: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
Description: This session looks at the issues of duplicate content and explores solutions for best practices.
Yahoo!: Sharad Verma, Senior Product Manager, Yahoo! Search Technology

Thursday, December 11th
Time: 9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Session: Think Local: Online Marketing Tactics for Small and Medium Sized Businesses
Description: This session will cover how advertisers can navigate through the sea of local marketing options to most effectively get in front of users.
Yahoo!: Atif Rafiq, Director of Strategy and Business Development for Yahoo! Local

For a complete conference schedule and to learn more about Yahoo!'s whereabouts, visit the SES agenda page.

Hope to see you there. Be sure to stop by the panels and say hi!

Yahoo! Search Blog team

With this objective in mind, we recently launched Search Assist for image search to guide users to the answers they seek in a new way. To better enhance the search experience, we took a two-tiered approach to the query formulation and refinement process. In the first stage, we've maintained the same paradigm of text suggestions that have helped users of web search complete and refine queries. The second stage is new - from now on, Search Assist can be opened after a query is entered into the search box for users to preview sample thumbnails for the top related search terms.

So if you search for roses in image search, you can preview the types of results you'll get for red roses, Guns N' Roses or black roses before clicking on the suggestion. This way, you know what images to expect before drilling down deeper to find your answers.

Search Assist for images has already been launched on the search results page and we'll be launching it on Yahoo.com soon. Stay tuned for more improvements to Search Assist for image search in the near future. And please share your feedback in the comments below.

Kaushal Kurapati
Director of Product Management
Yahoo! Search

If you're planning to attend the Gilbane Conference this week, be sure to stop by Prabhakar's talk on Wednesday, December 3rd, at 8:30 a.m. at the Westin Copley Place Hotel.

For a complete list of talks, check out the full conference schedule. Hope to see you there.

Yahoo! Search Blog Team

Not only are we presenting the top ten searches, we are also including overall themes and popular trends that bubbled to the surface , including the economy, politicians, news stories, Olympians, rising celebrities, influential women, and notable deaths. Searches within these themes covered the gamut, from Miley Cyrus' controversial Vanity Fair cover to the notorious pregnant man and farewell searches of Heath Ledger and Bernie Mac. Michael Phelps also pulled in the highest searches of any Olympian, while Angelina Jolie and Sarah Palin gained top positions in the influential women category.

Additional "top tens" were also included in this year's review across select areas of Yahoo! such as, Yahoo! Food, Shine, Tech, Green, Shopping, Travel, Games, Movies, Mobile, Music, Local, Upcoming, Hot Jobs, most Buzzed-Up stories and clicked-on stories from yahoo.com.

What a year it was! Looking over all of the top ten lists and search activity for 2008, we pulled out some interesting tidbits we thought you'd find interesting. Users were captivated by this year's historic US Presidential election, with the Olympic triumphs closely following. The economic downturn was another issue that grabbed up a lot of user's attention. Of course, there was still time to enjoy a little escape by devouring celebrity gossip and delving into online video games.

And despite all of the activity surrounding the 2008 Presidential elections, Britney Spears still gained the number one spot as the top searched person (7 out of 8 years). She did make some news this year with a new album, three MTV Music Awards, a sitcom guest star role and documentary on her rise. People just can't get enough of her!

Barack Obama was the second most searched person in 2008 and the third most popular search term. Headlines of his election victory received more clicks than any other story on yahoo.com this year. Obama soared up the search ranks as the election campaign moved forward with consumers using search to get informed, learn more about him and decide how to vote in this critically important election.

There was some debate on whether or not Britney Spears could outrank President-elect Barack Obama as the most searched term and most searched person in 2008. According to a recent Yahoo! Search survey*, most people thought Barack Obama (38 percent) would be the most searched person on the Web followed by Britney Spears (27 percent). It's not over yet, though! With one more month remaining in 2008, President Obama may still outrank his top search opponent.

To find out more about the Yahoo! 2008 Year in Review, go to yearinreview.yahoo.com.
Incidentally, another way to look back at 2008 is through our monthly reviews of top movers - keywords that accelerated the fastest. We skipped January (hangover, sorry), but click through to see what buzzed in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November.

Stephen Rodi
Yahoo! Search

*Source: October 2008 survey from Yahoo! and Decipher Inc., which randomly sampled and surveyed 2,000 U.S. Internet Adults

BOSS vertical lens technology provides a handful of features that were implemented on TechCrunch:

• Real-time indexing of proprietary content
- Once TechCrunch content is added or a user comment is submitted, the search index almost immediately reflects the changes.

• Customized ranking
- The BOSS and TechCrunch teams worked closely to fine-tune the ranking algorithm to fit the TechCrunch audience and user experience.

• Structured search
- BOSS supports faceted refinement around TechCrunch's structured content. This offers powerful tools for people who want to fine tune their searches or browse TechCrunch content - e.g. narrowing in on articles on Twitter written only by Michael Arrington, or only the most popular articles (popularity is determined by number of comments), or locating all companies that are founded in 2008.

• Blending Web with proprietary content in a single search display
- After querying both the TechCrunch and the Web indices, BOSS blends the results to produce one result set that is both relevant and comprehensive.

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. Our partnership with TechCrunch highlights the beginning of many more BOSS partner launches as Yahoo! continues to open up its search technologies and infrastructure to the world.

Take a look at TechCrunch's article for additional background and insight.

Stay tuned.

YaJie Ying
BOSS Team

To share your thoughts or check in with other Yahoo! Search users, please visit the Site Explorer Suggestion Board.

Sharad Verma
Yahoo! Search

The BOSS team got together with 100 developers and entrepreneurs in Tel Aviv for a detailed presentation on the BOSS API, presented in Hebrew by BOSS Engineering Director Eran Palmon. After the presentation, developers had the chance to build their own mashup creations that were then reviewed by a panel of judges. We received 20+ mashups and judging is complete.

Drum roll, please...

The winning team, Get the Pic, wrote an addictive phrase guessing game (similar to Hang-Man), based on Yahoo! BOSS image, news and web search APIs.

The ingenuity and entrepreneurship exhibited at the Hack Day in Tel Aviv was encouraging, especially as we continue to forge our relationship with developers in this region. In fact, Delver, an Israel-based social search company, recently launched its search engine powered in part by BOSS. There's no doubt that we'll continue to see new and inventive search experiences from developers there.

For more details on our developer event in Tel Aviv, check out this recent post from the Yahoo! Developer Network. We've captured more photos of the event as well.

Farewell for now, Tel Aviv...see you in 2009.

Sophie Major
YDN International & Honorary BOSS Team Member

We're starting with a limited set of topics (more will be added over time), pulling together content from the best places on the Web onto one Yahoo! Glue(TM) page. These pages are built using an algorithm that automatically places the most relevant modules on a page, giving you a visually rich, diverse page all about the topic in which you're interested.

To see it in action, check out some of the Glue pages on some popular people, places and things: New York Giants, Henry Paulson, Electoral College, Hugh Jackman, etc.

For those that may be wondering, our intention with Yahoo! Glue(TM) beta is not to replace the Yahoo! Search experience in the US. We're always challenging ourselves to explore innovative new ways to deliver great experiences. Glue is one of those experiments, with a goal of giving users one more visual way to browse and discover new things from across the Web. We'll be working to expand the number of Glue pages, improve the experience and incorporate your feedback into future versions.

We'll be rolling this out over the next few hours, so go ahead and give it a try at glue.yahoo.com. We think it's pretty sticky (we had to have one "glue" pun in this post), and we'd love your feedback.

Julie Demsey
Yahoo! Glue Product Management

Many users told us that they really enjoyed the game and were sad when it was removed after a brief period of time. That's why we teamed up with Yahoo! Games and worked hard to create two games that are refreshed daily - Daily Crossword and Hollywood Jumble. Following the recent launch on www.yahoo.com for Internet Explorer, we are thrilled to announce that they are now live for Firefox and Safari.

So take a break and give yourself a brain boost with the puzzle games powered by Yahoo! Search.

Good luck and have fun.

Christina Lee
Yahoo! Search

We began opening up our search infrastructure four months ago with Yahoo! Search BOSS. Since then, we've heard again and again in our developer group and at conferences and hack days around the world that developers want more access to deep infrastructure assets.

Key Terms is derived from a Yahoo! Search capability we refer to internally as "Prisma." This is the same patented technology that powers Search Assist. Key Terms is an ordered terminological representation of what a document is about. The ordering of terms is based on each term's frequency and its positional and contextual heuristics.

How could it be used? Obviously it could be used as the basis for assistance and refinement technology (as we've done with Search Assist), but that's hardly the only possible application. Key Terms could be highly useful as input to semantic analysis or new relevancy models. They could also be used to analyze and cluster similar documents or as a vehicle for new visual experiences.

For an example of Key Terms in use check out Tartin3.com. It's a Parisian food search engine built by our very own epicurean developer Ted Drake. The "Related Terms" refiners under each result are pulled directly from Key Terms.

To provide API access to Key Terms, we're introducing a new universal parameter called "view." View is the argument that will provide a lens into deeper content. Appending "&view=keyterms" to the BOSS Web Search API call will result in Key Terms being included in the response.

In the example below, we included Key Terms in a query for obama. Each result contains up to 20 terms describing the document. The terms below describe the first result, for Change.gov.

Check out the BOSS documentation for all the details of how you can use Key Terms and other BOSS functionality. Last but not least, we've added Romanian, Hebrew, and Turkish language/region support to the BOSS APIs - details are also included in the documentation.

If you have any questions or feedback, we encourage you to post them to the BOSS group. We're committed to continuing to open our infrastructure and technology to developers, start-ups and established Internet companies, so if you have any thoughts on what should be next, we're all ears.

Ashim Chhabra
The BOSS Team

After a successful stop in London, the team headed to Paris to prepare for another event on Wednesday.

The Paris event stood out for a couple of reasons. First, we were really pleased with the turnout. The event was held at a well-known Parisian coworking center called La Cantine, which seemed to be at the hub of the developer community in Paris... it was packed. Even more impressive was how engaged everyone was. We started with a one-hour overview and technical discussion, broke for sushi and beer and then split into two workshops -- one on the BOSS Mashup Framework and one on building niche search engines using the BOSS API.

Almost all of the developers stayed until 10:30 or later that evening to learn more about BOSS and shared some excellent feedback on where we should take the product. Although neither of us speaks a lick of French, we had some great conversations. We met with the folks from Veosearch, a BOSS-powered search engine that gives a percentage of its profits to charity, as well as the guys from Iminent, an IM add-on and contextual search company.

We'd like to thank all the developers who joined us. Hearing directly from you about new features you'd like to see will help us prioritize our efforts in 2009. Also, big thanks to the Yahoo! teams in London and Paris for all their help in setting up and running the events.

If you weren't able to join us, we'll continue to host developer events in the coming months. In the meantime, you can check out more photos and the slides from our presentation.

Graham Mudd & Vik Singh
BOSS Team

Happy anniversary, Delicious, and here's to many more.

Yahoo! Search Blog Team