Yahoo is transitioning its search back-end to Microsoft and one of the most coveted project, SearchMonkey will be shut down (from October 1st).
Yahoo! Search is continuing to shift from a model where developers build lightweight apps to install on Yahoo! to one where publishers enhance their own site markup to produce similar results. Yahoo! Search results pages will continue to show enhanced result templates from websites’ page markup and structured data feeds along with Microsoft’s organic listings.
Yahoo! Search BOSS to go Premium
BOSS will provide web and image search results from Microsoft along with other search-related services and content from Yahoo!, such as news. We are exploring a potential fee-based structure as well as ad-revenue models that will enable BOSS developers to monetize their offerings. When we roll out these changes, BOSS will no longer be a free service to developers.
YQL (Yahoo! Query Language)
Several search-related web services will continue to be supported, but strictly through YQL. These include the Yahoo! Term Extraction Web Service, Related Suggestion, and Spelling Suggestion. Other non-BOSS search APIs such as Web Search, Image Search, News Search and Site Explorer APIs will shut down with no further support in YQL. We plan to make these transitions and shutdowns effective by end of year.
MyBloglog APIs
MyBlogLog APIs will be shut down and Yahoo wants developers to use Social APIs.
– more details here
RIP Yahoo Search.
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Picasa 3.8 – Face Movies and Picnik Integration
Picasa 3.8 has been released with quite a major improvements – face movies and integration with Picnik.
Face movies create a movie based around one person both figuratively and literally. Instead of the usual transition from one photo to the next, the images align themselves to the face in the photo. This creates an extremely smooth viewing experience which allows the person in the photos to remain the focus rather than the transition effects themselves.
From the official Blog
Picnik integration
A few weeks ago we announced the integration of Picnik, the powerful online photo editor, into Picasa Web Albums. We’re now excited to bring this same functionality to Picasa. You can now use Picnik’s rich editing tools and effects from right inside of Picasa and see where your creativity takes you.
Batch upload from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums
With this new version of Picasa we’re also fulfilling a popular request: batch upload from Picasa right to your Picasa Web Albums account. In addition to uploading multiple photos, you can now upload entire albums, all at the same time, plus remove albums from your Picasa Web account, change the upload size, visibility and sync state of photos that are already online.
Metadata updates
For those of us who enjoy the technical side of photography, we have some nice metadata (information stored inside of your image file) updates too, including support of Color Management. Picasa will now read the metadata from your photo and present the photo in the correct color space, thus improving the way your photo displays on your monitor or TV screen.
Zemanta available for WordPress.com Blogs
Zemanta, the related content discovery startup has garnered the most important partnership ever – with WordPress.com.
To add Zemanta, go to Users > Personal Settings in your Dashboard. You’ll see a new option near the end of the page that lets you add Zemanta to your posts. Click “Help me find related content (images, links, related articles, and tags) to use in my posts.” Hit “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page. You can turn it off at any time. – details
Groupon Buys Majority Stake in Groupon Clones
As per WSJ, Groupon has acquired majority stake in Darberry of Russia and Qpod, a Japanese Groupon clone.
So who do you think gets the love in India? Taggle? (after all, they have same investors).
Zynga Acquires Conduit
Zynga has acquired Boston-based social games company Conduit Labs.
The Web s Dead
Read this great analytical piece by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff of Wired.com.
Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule.
