econman - 4:21 pm on Jul 11, 2008 (gmt 0)

As to their motives, perhaps Yahoo realizes search isn't their greatest strength, and their share of the search market is mostly a byproduct of their strength in other areas (content, display advertising). Perhaps this is part of a strategy to weaken Google by reducing the ubiquity of Google's branded site search, and to encourage other sites to compete with Google.

Sounds like this API could make it easier for small sites to enter the search business, and reduce the use of Google's branded search functions, which would help reduce Google's market power, which would ultimately work to Yahoo's (and Microsoft's) advantage.

That would be consistent with these comments on Yahoo's site: "Our goal with BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is simple -- foster innovation in the search landscape. As anyone who follows the search industry knows, the barriers to successfully building a high quality, web-scale search engine are incredibly high.

...Our hope is that the resulting expansion in user choice will have the effect of fragmenting the increasingly consolidated search market in much the same way that cable TV dramatically increased programming choices for television viewers."