Today Yahoo! announced details about its open search project in a move that changes the debate about what search effectiveness is. For years the discussions around search have focused on relevancy of the query results and the algorithms that prioritize what gets shown first. But Yahoo! is now showing that relevancy is only one part of the search process. Just as important is how quickly the user can act on the results.
Yahoo!'s Open Search platform will allow anyone to add data and semantic relationships to Yahoo!'s index. Take a search for a Cannon Elph for example - an online store like Amazon could provide Yahoo! both the link to its Canon Elph products and links to a photo, reviews, product details, and a buy button. When the user searches at Yahoo! for a Cannon Elph they would see the Amazon link to the product page alongside the photo, a link directly to reviews, basic product details, and a buy button.
This dramatically changes the conversation from "Did the query result in the most relevant content" (which may be a little esoteric for users anyway) to "How effectively did search get the user to their destination". Wow. It makes the user's goal, not the search alone, the primary focus.
A couple of weeks ago I published a post call "Publishing is for Acting" which highlights that people both post and consume information in order to *do* something with it. Yahoo! just created a workflow around the information that gives users a way to seamlessly move from their initial search to the action they want to take.
I'll be looking for more nifty announcements to follow - I can't wait to see how developers use this.
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