When the Web first appeared, people browsed for the sheer serendipitous kick of it, but soon the Web became a place to get things done. Web search has witnessed a similar transformation: search engines have graduated from fielding ego queries to becoming the starting point for being productive. While search engines have evolved with these changing needs, we think search technology is far from mature.

What if your favorite news site had a search engine you could turn to when news breaks that not only surfaces the best articles on that topic, but also the most relevant content from across the Web? Or what if your search engine understood your social relationships or your site preferences and presented results with that in mind? When you’re searching for new music, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a search engine that knew your and your friends’ taste in music, drew in reviews from across the Web, and recommended songs you might enjoy?

Today we’re announcing a service that brings ideas like these a bit closer to reality.

Yahoo! Search BOSS, which stands for Build Your Own Search Service, is a new open Web services platform from Yahoo! Search that will allow developers and companies of all sizes to leverage one of the most valuable assets on the Web, the Yahoo! Search infrastructure. It lets them realize their own vision of what a search experience should be, enabling unlimited mash-ups and disrupting the search landscape.

BOSS will enable developers and companies to easily enter the search industry –- without large capital or resource expenditures -- unleashing a wave of search innovation beyond any one of today’s search principals. Now anyone –- your favorite shopping site, an entrepreneur with a great idea or a start-up developer –- can tap into Yahoo!’s technology to create their own Web search experience without the infrastructure or talent resources needed to create one from scratch.

The result is that you’ll have more choice and flexibility in finding whatever you’re looking for on the Web –- just as you now have far more programming options with cable TV than when there were just three networks. (For examples of how BOSS technology can be used or to get started building your own search engine, visit the Yahoo! Developer Network.)

Stay tuned for more to come on how we are fundamentally changing the way you search.

Prabhakar Raghavan
Chief Strategist for Yahoo! Search