Trainspotting with Yahoo! BOSS

Ted DRAKE | Yahoo! France | June 2, 2009 (a)

What is BOSS?WHAT: Yahoo! Search BOSS is a set of tools that developers, start-ups and established internet companies can use to build next generation search experiences.

WHY: To encourage innovation and also generate additional opportunities to drive volume for Yahoo! Search.

BOSS Search

Terms that allow users to:

• Re-rank results

• Blend results/content sources

• Use any monetization platform

• Access unlimited queries

• Present results in any way

• Brand their products in any way

Features:

• Web/Image/News/Spelling

• Key Terms (from Search Assist)

• SearchMonkey Structured Data

• Expanded Abstracts

• Page data from Search Exp.

• 40+ lang/region pairs

• Porn/Adult filtering

• Mashup Framework

• Delicious data

BOSS Lens (Summer 2009)

Sorting options

Refiners- Property- # of comments- Author

Native branding & presentation style

Structured data- Comments- Author - Date

Shortcuts

YSM Ads

BOSS is a Data API, not a Search API

Meet Tom the Trainspotter

(b)

Not this Tom

Tom’s Train Site

• /blog/ • /photos/ • /schedules/ (.xls) • /maps/• /blueprints/ (.pdf)• /spottings/ (geolocated)• /forum/ (was active 10 years ago)• /twitter/

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(c)

Tom’s Trains Search

• Tom wants to integrate the data across his site.

• One search box for everything on www.tomstrains.com

• The “site:” query filter limits search to a single domain.

• /ysearch/web/v1/bittern+site=tomstrains.com? (1)

Category Search

/ysearch/web/v1/bittern+site=tomstrains.com+inurl=maps (2)

Grab Related Photos• Tom wants to display related photos

from his photo gallery

• /ysearch/images/v1/flying+banana? refererurl=tomstrains.com (3)

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(d)

Tom Loves His Search Page

Now he wants to BOSS his blog

The Blueprint Module

• New tag : bp-{train model}

• Module removes “bp-” • Search for .pdf files.• /ysearch/web/v1/

bittern+site=tomstrains.com?type=pdf (4)

(e)

Tom’s Site Search

• Search entire site

• Filter results by section

• Filter by file type

• Blog modules

Tom is ready to build the ultimate trainspotting site

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Trains in the News• Tom only wants fresh news.

• Limit results to the last 7 days

/ysearch/news/v1/london?age=1d-7d (5)(f)

Add More Experts

• Tom’s friends are also trainspotters.

• Tom updates the search to includetheir sites as well

• /ysearch/web/v1/Gricer?sites=tomstrains.com, gentlemanrook.com,imaspotter.com,locomotive.edu(6)

(g)

Location Based Results

• Get user’s location via Fire Eagle and Placemaker

• Get information about upcoming train stations and the current location

• Search the /schedules/ section for appropriate spreadsheets

• Display images and information from the /spottings/ section.

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3 Layers of Context

• Yahoo! Defined - Keyterms

• User Defined - Delicious Data

• Publisher Defined - SearchMonkey (microformats + RDF)

BOSS Keyterms

• Keyterms associated with the result page by the Yahoo! Search Index

• Used in Yahoo for search suggestions

• /ysearch/web/v1/crompton?view=keyterms (7)

Delicious Data

• User-Generated Tags from Delicious

• Quantity for each tag

• Number of users who saved the target page.

• /ysearch/web/v1/crompton?view=delicious_toptags,delicious_saves (8)

SearchMonkey

• SearchMonkey surfaces semantic information for Yahoo! Search and BOSS

• Microformats and RDF defined data is available

• Two formats for data structure• /ysearch/web/v1/crompton?

view=searchmonkey_feed | searchmonkey_rdf (9)

/ysearch/web/v1/crompton?view=keyterms,delicious_toptags,delicious_

saves,searchmonkey_feed(10)

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Using Tags

• Aggregate all keyterms, Delicious tags, and SearchMonkey tags for result set.

• Sort to get most popular tags.

• Create tag clouds, related searches, search suggestions, relevancy changes.

Trainspotting Relationships

• Relationships: rel=“me, met, friend,…”

• Search for the resource url amongst sites that use XFN

• /ysearch/web/v1/tomstrains.com+searchmonkeyid:com.yahoo.page.uf.xfn?view=searchmonkey_feed (11)

Contextual Modules

• Display modules when queries match certain patterns.

• “locomotive|engine|diesel” triggers an engineering module

• “dining|first-class|passenger” triggers passenger module

• “steam|vintage” displays the RSS feed for a train history blog.

Resource Details

• Tom wants to gather more information on each of his experts.

• Several BOSS requests– Site Explorer inlinks:

/ysearch/se_inlink/v1/gentlemanrook.com (12)

– Site Explorer Pagedata:/ysearch/se_pagedata/v1/gentlemanrook.com (13)

– Web search of resource: /ysearch/web/v1/gentlemanrook.com?view=keyterms,delicious_toptags,language&abstract=long&start=0&count=1 (14)

Resources• Yahoo! BOSS: http://developer.yahoo.com/boss• BOSS Mashup Framework:

http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/mashup.html• YQL: http://developer.yahoo.com/yql• Fire Eagle: http://developer.yahoo.com/fireeagle/• Placemaker: http://developer.yahoo.com/placemaker/ • oAuth: http://oauth.net/• Open Social: http://www.opensocial.org/• Open Data: http://theinfo.org • Alt Search Engines: http://www.altsearchengines.com/• BOSS Hacks: http://bosshacks.com• Ted DRAKE: tdrake@yahoo-inc.com

BOSS Requests1) Site Specific: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/bittern+site=tomstrains.com?

appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml 2) InUrl filtering: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/london+tube+site=tomstrains.com +inurl=maps?

appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml 3) Image search: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/images/v1/london+tube?

refererurl=tomstrains.com&appid={yourBOSSappid}4) File Type: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/green+cargo+site=tomstrains.com?

type=pdf&appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml 5) Sites attribute:

http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/Gricer?sites=tomstrains.com, gentlemanrook.com,imaspotter.com,locomotive.edu& appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml

6) News search: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/news/v1/london+tube?age=1d-7d& appid={yourBOSSappid} 7) Keyterms:

http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/crompton? appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml&view=keyterms8) Delicious Data:

http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/crompton? appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml&view=delicious_toptags,delicious_saves

9) SearchMonkey: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/crompton? appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml&view=searchmonkey_feed

10) All Tags: http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/crompton? appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml&view=keyterms,delicious_toptags,delicious_saves,searchmonkey_feed

11) XFN data:http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/tdrake.net+searchmonkeyid:com.yahoo.page.uf.xfn?appid= {yourBOSSappid}&format=xml&start=0&count=15&view=searchmonkey_feed

12) Inbound links:http://boss.yahooapis.com /ysearch/se_inlink/v1/gentlemanrook.com? appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml

13) Page Data:http://boss.yahooapis.com /ysearch/se_pagedata/v1/gentlemanrook.com? appid={yourBOSSappid}&format=xml

14) Resource data:http://boss.yahooapis.com /ysearch/web/v1/gentlemanrook.com?appid= {yourBOSSappid}& view=keyterms,delicious_toptags,language&abstract=long&start=0&count=1&format=xml

Photo Credits

a) Bittern by Crowcombe Al. b) Get out of my -ing way! by Crowcombe Al.c) Bullet Train at Night by Ted Draked) Flying Banana by James F Claye) Train Blueprint by South Fraser OnTrax

(SFOT) Transportation Advocacy Societyf) Train crash! by robpatrickg) Railfans by bjakubskih) CLS.07.04.22.R3.03.A by thomas.merton