Well, we finally announced it. Yahoo Search is going way open very soon. We will be allowing publishers and site owners to provide us with additional information about their site. This will provide a next-generation search experience with results that can display some of the rich data that is today only available on the website after the user clicks through. For example, ratings and reviews, great photographs, useful site links, etc. The additional beauty is that users can control whether they want to see this additional info or not. Their choice. A picture captures the essence of this better than my description (see below).

An Open Approach to Search
The open theme continues today as we are announcing that we are opening up Yahoo! Search itself. That’s right — you heard it correctly — the Yahoo! Search experience will soon be open. This open search platform enables 3rd parties to build and present the next generation of search results. There are a number of layers and capabilities that we have built into the platform, but our intent is clear — present users with richer, more useful search results so that they can complete their tasks more efficiently and get from “to do” to “done.” Read full blog post…

Good coverage and comments on TechCrunch. Want to learn more about our Open Search Platform? Sign up here

Key Highlight
Yahoo isn’t afraid to shake up the traditional web search paradigm in order to give users what they need: More useful search results that will help them get things done more efficiently. The end result will be something that is not only good for users, but also good for web site owners.

Well, the biggest consumer-facing change to the Yahoo! Search experience has arrived. We just launched our new Search design this week, which features an incredible amount of great new improvements including:

• Search Assist – suggestions and related concepts that give users a new way to explore a subject area they may be unfamiliar with. Try a search for the United Nations.
• Multimedia integration – video, Flickr photos, etc.
• Enhanced Shortcuts – music artists, movies, travel destinations, and athletes

It is all about improving the experience for consumers who are trying to get things done. No one wants to struggle with a search engine when they need information. Search just shouldn’t be so hard. With our new Search experience, it just got a whole lot easier.

To learn more, visit our Yahoo! Search Blog or you can check out my recent television interview with CBS 5.

The final whitepaper has been published by Enquiro Research for Search Engine Results 2010. In it, they

cover what search engines may look like in the future, thoughts on personalization, universal search, eye tracking research, and interviews with leading industry experts such as Marissa Mayer, Jakob Nielsen, and Danny Sullivan.

Search Engine Land just published my article: Search & Serendipity: Finding More When You Know Less. Here is an excerpt:

Where do you go to get your daily fix of fresh information? If you are like millions of other users out there, you hit sites like Digg, Delicious, Techmeme, or just open your favorite RSS reader. Or, you tap into your Stumbleupon toolbar to see what your fellow Stumblers have found interesting lately. Most people don’t automatically think of search as a place for serendipitous exploration. Search is best when you have something specific in mind, right?

Actually, search has been evolving a lot lately. And, as we seek new and better means of disambiguating intent, the search engines are increasingly offering richer media and information that feels a lot more dynamic and exploratory.

Read full article…

I was recently interviewed by Gord Hotchkiss over at Search Engine Land on the future of Search. The meta question was: “What will the search results page look like in 3 years?” The full article is posted here: Search in the Year 2010.

He interviewed a very interesting list of folks:

• Jakob Nielsen, one of the biggest names in the Usability world
• Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of user experience and interface design
• Michael Ferguson, one of the UE architects at Ask.com
• Larry Cornett (me), the VP of search experience at Yahoo!
• Justin Osmer, Product Manager for Microsoft Live search
• Chris Sherman, Executive Editor of Search Engine Land
• Greg Sterling, another industry analyst
• Danny Sullivan, the search engine guru and founder of Search Engine Land

I won’t bother summarizing the article here, so read it!

It has been a while since I have posted. If you head on over to Yahoo! Search, you will see why I’ve been a little busy lately. We’ve been working on a ton of great new ideas for our Search experience and some of them are now ready for you! It is all about giving consumers a much better experience when they are searching, so that they find exactly what they are looking for faster and are happier with the results. Check out what we’ve been up to and I think you will agree.

A new Travel Destination Shortcut

A new Music Artists Shortcut

A new Audio preview feature

An exciting new Yahoo! Search Assist feature (image from Danny Sullivan on Flickr). Danny has a great article about it on Search Engine Land titled Search Suggestions on Steroids: Yahoo! Search Assist

I’m sorry that I can’t provide you with a link to our new Search Assist technology yet, since it is currently in testing. But, stay tuned!

If you want to read more about Yahoo! Search, you can check out our blog.