In a demonstration of just how open Yahoo search can be, one of its senior engineers has created a simple search mashup that combines Yahoo’s BOSS framework and Google’s App Engine. Yahoo BOSS allows developers to create their own customized search apps based on Yahoo’s search engine, and the Google App Engine is a platform for hosting apps. Vik Singh, the engineer who leads the Yahoo Boss project (and a former Google engineer) created a simple Question-Answering Service, where you put in a question, and it tries to come up with the answer based on the top 50 results from Yahoo. (So, if you ask, “Who invented the light bulb?,” it looks for the most popular dates in the top 50 results and returns: “Thomas Edison”).
Singh explains in his blog that he was able to create this demo with just 50 lines of code. This is not the first time a Yahoo BOSS app is running on Google’s App Engine (Cuil knock-off Yuil, now 4hoursearch, is also a mashup of the two services). But it does show how seriously Yahoo is taking its open-search strategy.
As I’ve argued in the past, Yahoo needs to out-open Google if it is going to have any chance at competing in search. Even if it’s too late to catch up to Google in core search, an open approach could help Yahoo differentiate its product, win over developers, and open up new avenues of search that Google is currently ignoring. And being open means embracing Google as well.
Interesting ! Can developers make money from using boss .. and how ? Google ads are obvious but what else ?
just tried it…
how many kids does lance armstrong have? -> “tour”
close, i think it’s actually three.
technically it’s supposed to only answer who/what/where/when questions
how many would be easy to add
just count the most frequent numbers in the results …
Nice, but so far, Adsense for Search provide monetization options, while BOSS don’t.
Sounds like a must-have feature to me in order to compete with Google.
actually there is no adsense for search solution for tail search products, meaning that it’s available on a self-serve basis. you need to have some volume and then go negotiate a contract with google. you can do the same thing with y! boss now as well. no difference.
Well that’s my point.
You can already go and get “Yahoo BOSS+monetization” functions from Yahoo, or one of their partners if you have enough trafic to justify it.
Now, if you are experimenting/trying something new, Adsense for search is the only option around to monetize.
I`m jessica andrews
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=who+i+am
Erick,
You are such a “ho”
But it does show ho seriously….
this is a really cool mashup
i’m surprised it can answer some questions accurately (just 50 lines)
like:
‘who will win the presidential election’
barack obama
very impressive stuff! definitely a smart strategy by yahoo.
when then input is empty and you press the question mark button it runs the question
‘why didn’t you provide a question’
and the answer it comes back with is
god
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....r+of+india
who is prime minister of india -> “Sonia Gandhi”
People not aware of indian politics : Manmohan Singh is the PM and Sonia is the leader of the ruling party.
http://bossy.appspot.co/qa?que.....r+of+India
gives Manmohan Singh
Well, it thinks that Greta van Susteren owns O’Reilly Media, and that Tim O’Reilly works at Web 2.0. Oh, by the way, Mike Arrington must work for me, because he works at Web 2.0 too.
It’s cool that the question-answer service runs on app engine, but it isn’t too good except at obvious facts. A bit of a silly demo.
I think it’s pretty cool actually. I don’t think he was trying to build a full fledged q&a engine. Integrating a SQL mashup for search, xml, json data in google app engine and being able to build any q&a engine in 50 lines looks powerful to me. Gonna try this …
Its a good laugh tho
Q: When will humaity be free?
Month: None Year: None
Q: What is painful
Gout
Q: What is love
True
umm, better go do some work now.
bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=what+is+true+love
bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=who+created+world
bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=who+will+live+forever
bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=who+is+my+love
bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=when+i+will+have+sex+with+Britney+Spears
What is interesting here is not the app, it’s the integration.
FTW http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+most+jews
lmao this engine is accurate
i tried the same with google ipo and got something about brad pitt
This results are hilarious!!!
maybe it speaks the truth?!?!?!
[IMG]http://i35.tinypic.com/2rxxh79.jpg[/IMG]
It sounds like boss has proven itself very successful so far. Is Google doing anything to counter Yahoo’s “openness”? Unless its winning over a excessive amount of internet users, it doesn’t do much damage to Google. They would have to monetize it first… http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
Q: Will Microsoft buy Yahoo!?
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+buy+Yahoo!%3F
A: google
Q: Will Google buy Yahoo!?
A: microsoft
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+buy+yahoo
Q : which company wants to buy yahoo
A : microsoft
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+buy+yahoo
Q: why are you boring?
A: unemployment
???
I have heard that Yahoo is also buying viddler.com. It was posted on http://www.techtecs.com.
Yahoo is surely getting in action….!
This one is strange:
q: who will win soccer olympic gold
or
q: who will win football olympic gold
a: north korea
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....ympic+gold
Whois is Jerry Yang married to?
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....married+to
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....married+to
gives the right answer!!
when will we achieve world peace - None / None
when will we achieve whirled peas - Mar / 2008
I asked it who is George Bush? And I got Bill Clinton as an answer.
Also “What time is it?” A: Indiana
Inflation is everywhere:
q: what is 2 plus 2
a: 15
Seriously guys what integration??
HTTP is an open protocol!!
News flash: Windows runs on Mac. Now this is integration.
q: what is the best candybar
a: twix
q: Who invented the Internet?
a: Al Gore
oh no!
q: when will the earth end
a: Month: Dec Year: 2012
Q: who is the president of the united states of america
A: star trek wiki
Try this “who is POTUS” to get the answer you are looking for
Q:who does paris hilton at the moment
A:benji madden
Impressive
Q.WHEN DID TECHCRUNCH START?
A.FEB 2008 !!!
NOT THAT COOL..
This one is even better ;
Q.Who is George Bush?
A. Bill Clinton…….
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....e+of+birth
USAMA?
Q. When did google ipo?
A. Month: Apr Year: 2140
Q. What is the largest integer?
A. 7
Q. Why?
A. wikipedia
Q. Help! I’m trapped in an internet factory?
A. china
Totally agree with Erick that Yahoo’s only chance is to “out-open”/”out-transparent” Google, and have argued so many times over the last few months:
“… Plus open up all of the spickets to leverage open source development assistance. If they still want to be in search and search ads, outflank Google by opening up the kimono to advertisers and become the “transparent search ad platform” vs. Google who like to keep things close to their vest.”
http://businessmindhacks.com/p.....e-dead-yet
Q: what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything
A: 42
This engine knows its stuff.
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....rything%3F
Q: Who will buy yahoo
A: http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+buy+yahoo
A Gelato Company?
Actually I think Yahoo is headed in the right direction with this. Being able to do what you want with their search results may generate a lot of interest among the development community. Having it hosted on google app engine is supposed to be ironic.
I decided to try it myself, so I built a search rank refiner that sits on the app engine, and combines user votes to re-rank search results.
It’s here: http://goopinion.appspot.com
Behold… the power of the internet:
bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=who+let+the+dogs+out
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....e+dogs+out
Who was the first president of the united states?
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/base/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py”, line 499, in __call__
handler.get(*groups)
File “/base/data/home/apps/bossy/1.29/main.py”, line 80, in get
page = do_www(query)
File “/base/data/home/apps/bossy/1.29/main.py”, line 66, in do_www
phrase = wwwsearch(query)
File “/base/data/home/apps/bossy/1.29/wwwqa.py”, line 57, in wwwsearch
w = db.select(udf=phrases_udf, data=ysearch.search(q, count=50))
File “/base/data/home/apps/bossy/1.29/yos/boss/ysearch.py”, line 39, in search
return rest.load_json(url)
File “/base/data/home/apps/bossy/1.29/yos/crawl/rest.py”, line 24, in load_json
return simplejson.loads(download(url))
File “/base/python_lib/versions/1/django/utils/simplejson/__init__.py”, line 232, in loads
return cls(encoding=encoding, **kw).decode(s)
File “/base/python_lib/versions/1/django/utils/simplejson/decoder.py”, line 251, in decode
obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
TypeError: expected string or buffer
it worked for me and returned george washington
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+states%3F
@Nick:
If you want to know “Who was the first president of the united states” then:
http://bitcircle.com/search/we.....ted+states
I got your answer. LOL
Technical problems aside, this is pretty cool.
what is yahoo?
reply: find
???
Who is the prime minister of the pakistan
ans: benazir bhutto
I got the prime minister, president, even the vice president of India Right
Impressive…
Seems like this is a new way for Yahoo to provide BREAKING NEWS:
Q: when will Yahoo join Microsoft
A: Month: Dec Year: 2008
It’s funny.
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....dows+vista
Q: who hates windows vista [?]
A: paul thurrott’s supersite
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....dows+vista
Q: who loves windows vista [?]
A: microsoft ultimate learned stop worrying
haha that answer to who loves windows vista is so on the money
Q. who sings the song smells like teen spirit?
A. Paul Anka
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....een+spirit
Still, for widely known stuff that doesn’t tend to change, it does well.
http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?qu.....+destroyed
hey it answered some deep questions for me: http://biblebasics.wordpress.c.....t-tell-me/