Yahooooooooo!

Yahoo is making its internal systems resources available to developers through Web services, notes Alice LaPlante in Web Services Pipeline. "Yahoo has joined the ranks of Google, eBay, Amazon.com, and, more recently, TIVO," she adds.The Yahoo Search Developer Networkenablesthird-party developers to "access Yahoo content and services and build Yahoo directly into new and existing applications, including news, video, still images, Web and local search content and functionality."

However, LaPlante spies acatch. She notes that "the license for the APIs clearly establishes that programming interfaces are for non-commercial use only. That means, unlike the Web services APIs offered by other pioneers in this area, developers can't create for-pay products and services. And they have to include 'Powered by Yahoo!' in any application that uses Yahoo data or services."

Yahoo benefits by extending its branded networkthrough the work and investments of others-- just asGoogle, eBay, Amazon haveby releasing Web services-based APIs. "To help developers get started quickly, the Yahoo Search Developer Network provides sample code for the most popular Web application development languages, including Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python and PHP," she concludes.