An introduction to BOSS API

1. Build your Own Search Service
Chris Heilmann
Saurabh Sahni
HackU: IIT Delhi 31st Jan’ 2009

2. Outline
• BOSS Examples
• About BOSS API
– What?
– Why?
– Features
• How to use it
– BOSS API
– BOSS Mashup framework
-2-

3. BOSS Examples
-3-

4. hakia: http://hakia.com/
-4-

5. hakia: http://hakia.com/
-5-

6. hakia: http://hakia.com/
-6-

7. Cluuz: http://cluuz.com
-7-

8. Cluuz: http://cluuz.com
-8-

9. Cluuz: http://cluuz.com
-9-

10. Keyword finder - http://keywordfinder.org/
- 10 -

11. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/
- 11 -

12. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/
- 12 -

13. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/
- 13 -

14. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/
- 14 -

15. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/
- 15 -

16. About BOSS API
- 16 -

17. What?
• Open Yahoo’s core search features via web services to
let 3rd parties revolutionize Search
• Unrestricted
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss
- 17 -

18. Opening the search technology stack
Rank
Assist
EXTRACT
Retrieve
SPAM <-> Gold Usage
CRAWL
Web Map
Analyze
Index Index
50B pages * 20ms page download = 31 years
- 18 -

19. Opening the search technology stack
Your App here
WEB API
Rank
Assist
EXTRACT
Retrieve
SPAM <-> Gold Usage
CRAWL
Web Map
Analyze
Index Index
50B pages * 20ms page download = 31 years
- 19 -

20. Why?
• Barriers to entry are massive
– a massive capital investment
– access to top technical talent
• Asset to Innovate
– Develop new relevance models
• Leverage user insights
• Use tags, bookmarks
– Change presentation style
• Search anywhere
– Improve Vertical Quality w/ Web comprehensiveness
– Fragment the market, foster more players, choice, competition
- 20 -

21. BOSS API features
• Unlimited queries per day
• No branding or attribution
• No restrictions on presentation
• Ability to re-order results and blend-in addition content
• Access to multiple verticals (web search, image, news)
• Spell checks, keyword suggestions
• 40+ supported language and region pairs
• Ability to monetize
- 21 -

22. How to use it?
- 22 -

23. Get Started
• Register for an application id
http://developer.yahoo.com/wsregapp/
• Documentation
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/boss_guide/
• Code samples: Javascript, PHP and Python
http://www.saurabhsahni.com/boss-examples.zip
- 23 -

24. BOSS API
Searching
Slumdog
Millionaire
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slumdog_Millionaire_poster.jpg)
- 24 -

25. BOSS API
• Search for slumdog millionaire:
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1
/slumdog+millionaire?appid=xyz&format=xml
• Exact search for “slumdog millionaire”
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web
/v1/%22slumdog+millionaire%22
?appid=xyz&format=xml
- 25 -

26. BOSS API
• Search for slumdog millionaire only on indiatimes.com:
– Add site:indiatimes.com to your query
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/slumdog
+millionaire+site%3Aindiatimes.com
?appid=xyz&format=xml
• Search for slumdog millionaire on selected movie sites
– Add param sites=indiatimes.com,movies.yahoo.com,imdb.com
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/slumdog
+millionaire?appid=xyz&sites=indiatimes.co
m%2Cmovies.yahoo.com&format=xml
- 26 -

27. BOSS API
• Find related keywords
– Add parameter view=keyterms
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/slumdog
+millionaire?appid=xyz&view=keyterms&format=xml
• Search images
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/images/v1/slumdog
+millionaire?dimensions=small
• Search news
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/news/v1/slumdog
+millionaire?age=15d
- 27 -

28. BOSS API
Spell check request
http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/spelling/v1/
milionare?format=xml
Response
<ysearchresponse responsecode=”200”>
<resultset_spelling count=quot;1quot; start=“0quot; totalhits=quot;1quot; deephits=quot;1quot;>
<result>
<suggestion>millionaire</suggestion>
</result>
</resultset_spelling>
</asearchresponse>
- 28 -

29. BOSS API
http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/{vert}/v1/{query}
• {query}: term to look for (url-encoded)
• {vert} := {web, news, images, spelling}
• @ required
– appid
• @ optional
– start, count, lang, region, format, callback, sites
- 29 -

30. BOSS Mashup Framework
• Python (v2.5+) library
• BOSS Search SDK plus …
• SQL for remixing arbitrary XML/JSON sources
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/mashup.html
- 30 -

31. BMF + Google App Engine
• Enhanced version of BMF to GAE platform
• http://zooie.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/yahoo-boss-google-app-engine-integrated/
• Enables quick deployment of BOSS applications online
- 31 -

32. One more thing…
- 32 -

33. BOSS in Academic Research
• The biggest dataset available on web
• Very useful for Web-mining research experiments
– Natural language processing
– Semantic extraction
– Related keywords
– Similarity detection
– Clustering algorithms
– Spelling corrections
- 33 -

34. Thank You
Questions?
More: http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/
- 34 -

35. Appendix
- 35 -

36. Search UI Templates are Included in the
BOSS Mashup Framework
http://www.yahoo.com
BOSS Mashup Framework simplifies aggregating and presenting multiple data sources
- 36 -

37. BMF Features
• select, group, sort, union, joins, udfs, where
• Text normalization and duplicate removal
• Auto-transformation of resource-oriented API results
into tables w/o parsing
• All-in-memory storage and retrieval operations
• Ability to join lists of tables via an arbitrary predicate
function (map-like)
• Search UI template framework
• Single search function provides total access to
BOSS REST API
- 37 -