A lot was written a couple of weeks ago about Yahoo’s release of Build your Own Search Service (BOSS), by blogs like Boomtown, Techcrunch, GigaOm and others.  Most bloggers viewed it as a smart move by Yahoo to attempt to compete with Google.  Lower barriers to entry and make it much easier to compete with Google.  Require that BOSS users use Yahoo! ads on the search result pages.  There is only upside in this for Yahoo!. I think that this captures Yahoo!’s opportunity fairly accurately.

The question remains, though: does BOSS present a substantial opportunity for start-ups or any company that might try to leverage BOSS technology. Andrew Chen dismisses this as a nice mash-up opportunity:

The problem is, how will the companies that implement this cool technology end up with any traffic? Seems like this program is a recipe for a bunch of neat PR-generating techie projects without real traction, which is arguably not what Yahoo needs right now.

I think that he nails the key issue–traffic–but overlooks the companies that can make Yahoo!’s technology a true success, high-traffic, vertically-targeted sites. I think that most people have overlooked the implications of this release to a number of companies, specifically as it relates to Sramana Mitra’s concept of Web 3.0:

3C = Content, Commerce, Community | 4th C = Context | P = Personalization | VS = Vertical Search

I’d like to focus on the final component of her definition of Web 3.0, vertical search.  The flexibility afforded by Yahoo! BOSS technology can provide the foundation for vertical search in this environment.  Mitra goes into a number of sites on her blog that are strong candidates for owning a particular vertical.  Expedia, for example, is a good candidate to own the travel vertical.  Using BOSS technology, Expedia could, in theory, provide a very clean solution for the “Paris Hilton” problem that Jason Calacanis uses in defense of Mahalo.  If you are searching for “Paris Hilton” on Expedia, it is pretty safe to say that you are not looking out for the latest gossip on Paris Hilton or whether or not there will be another season of “The Simple Life”.  Similarly, sites focused on specific demographics (e.g. women), geographies (i.e. local search) or psychographics (e.g. environmentalists) should value search results differently.

I fully realize that this idea is not revolutionary.  Companies like Eurekster have tried this in the past.  However, the power of Yahoo’s search platform, coupled with the movement of companies towards full ownership of their userbase align the incentives of Yahoo! and a number of potential partners.

What do you think?  Will companies adopt BOSS?

I am somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about technology, media and, most recently, social media.  I love reading blogs and have learned a tremendous amount over the past year or so about how people are thinking about technology, media and innovation.  Recently, I’ve been posting a lot to other people’s blogs, whenever I agree or, more often than not, disagree with what has been posted.  Now, I think that I’ve reached the point that I want to share my thoughts with the blog world and see what people think about what I have to say.  Chances are, nobody will read this blog and this will be a better outlet for me than to bother my friends and coworkers…either way it should be fun.

 This post obviously doesn’t have much substance to it.  The one thing that I will say is that my favorite blogger out there is Fred Wilson.  He provides a lot of incredibly valuable insight on issues and trends…something that isn’t often achieved in blogs.  After reading his blog for a few months, I feel like I have an idea of the type of person that he is.

His most recent blog post that has really made me think is http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/12/2007_the_implic.html.  I don’t have time to write about it now, but I encourage everybody to read it.  I think that Fred has picked up on the key trend that will spur innovation moving forward: now that the wave of Web 2.0 companies has made people comfortable with contributing personal information to the internet, the next step is for them to allow companies and “the web” to improve their lives by analyzing the information and suggesting how they can improve their actions.  Personally, I think that these new services will have to come in the form of new companies because I cannot think of a company out there that has built a brand associated with trust that users will allow into their lives.  The closest company out there is google; however, I agree with a lot of blog posts that I have read lately that google’s drive for profitability and to cross-sell products in their product line is starting to lead to a loss of trust.  Either way, Google’s competitors will need to either acquire and manage or establish brands that the user can trust.