We've heard you and have made Web Search and Context Search easier to use. The APIs now return up to 100 results per query, an increase of 50. All other Search Web Services remain the same and there's been no change to rate limiting. Enjoy!
We've added two new feeds to help you keep up to date with the latest in the gaming world.
First is a RSS feed of Yahoo! Games so you can stay in the loop of the newest of the new over at Yahoo! Games.
For the videogame aficionado, RSS feeds from Yahoo! Video Games give you a super easy way to access the content from the new and massively cool Yahoo! Videogames site. With a feedreader get real time notification of all the lates reviews, tips, previews, multimedia content and cheats. Get early access to the info directly from Yahoo!.
We've added a new call to the Shopping API, User Product Review. It allows you to retrieve Yahoo! user reviews for a specific product and sort them in different ways so that you always find the reviews you are looking for. Track new recommendations, find the most recommended products and keep tabs on the low performers.
Several people have asked us about compressing the XML we return from Yahoo! Search Web Services. We'd been reluctant to do it because some browsers and platforms claim to support compression without actually doing so. However, we can now return compressed data to clients that support compression while working well with systems that don't support it so well.
If you want the data we return to be compressed, do the following:
1) Use HTTP 1.1.
2) Pass in an 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' header.
3) Spoof your user-agent to be Mozilla/5.0 (or higher).
Don't forget to do the expansion on the other end!
Will this save you time? Quite possibly. XML compresses nicely, and savings of 50% on the data size are not uncommon. Depending on how busy your processor is, less data over the network may be fast enough to offset the cost of decompression.
In June of this year, we gave developers the ability to overlay geographic data on a Yahoo! Map. Since then, we've seen a lot of terrific maps mash-ups. But you wanted more. You wanted the ability to embed Yahoo! Maps on your own Web site. You wanted to programmatically convert addresses into geocoded longitude/latitude pairs. You wanted more data feeds, such as highway traffic and local data, to plot on a map. But most importantly, you wanted a user experience that's better than any online mapping product out there.
Today we build on the success of the Simple Maps API by adding several new APIs for Yahoo! Maps. These products enable developers to use Yahoo! Maps in exciting new ways — including embedding maps on your Web site.
With this release, we are providing:
Of course, the Simple Maps API we released in June is still there, giving developers and non-developers the ability to plot locations on Yahoo! Maps with no programming and no rate limits.
We're giddy with excitement about this release, and we can't wait to see how you use the new APIs. We know there's lot to digest here, so if you have questions, feedback, or just want to show off what you've done, please join us in the yws-maps group.
Jeffrey McManus
Director, Yahoo! Developer Network
Yahoo! Maps Developers,
I wanted to take a brief moment to clarify our terms of use for Yahoo! Maps, as many folks have contacted us asking whether they could use the APIs on their site.
Our position has always been to allow usage of the Yahoo! Maps APIs free of charge for non-commercial use, as well as commercial use granted on a case-by-case basis. This is defined in our FAQ which also has instructions for how to contact us should you want to seek permission for commercial use.
In general, if you are displaying mashups featuring Yahoo! Maps on your site or application and you make your stuff available for free to users, you’re welcome to use the Yahoo! Maps APIs. This is true even if your site is supported by ads -- even ads from other vendors.
But while I've got you thinking about monetizing your site, allow me to make a shameless plug for something else we’re doing at Yahoo! -- take a look at the Yahoo Publisher Network BETA. Revenue, relevant ads, no hassle. Easy. Sign up today for your YPN beta invite.
Vince Maniago, Product Manager, Yahoo! Local
Since we launched the Yahoo! Search Web Services, we're received a number of requests to use our various regional search engines. We're happy to announce that you can now use the Yahoo! Web Search API to access the regional search engines behind Yahoo! UK Search, Yahoo! France Search, Yahoo! Germany Search and all the other available country-specific engines. Now you can specify the actual search engine used in addition to the country code of the search results.
To aim your search at a particular regional engine, simply pass in a region parameter (e.g. region=ca) to the Web Search API, and it will use the appropriate regional database.
In addition, Yahoo! Japan has made a Web Search API available in Japanese. Note that the Japanese Search Web Services are provided and supported separately from our other international web services; visit the Yahoo! Japan Developer Network for more information.
Finally, we've just launched Yahoo! Switzerland Search, and we'll have Swiss search functionality available through the web service in a couple of weeks. We'll update you then.
Until then, have fun!
Toby Elliott
Yahoo! Search Web Services
The Yahoo! Widgets team has been hard at work creating a new runtime environment to let you create even cooler Widgets. The new Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0 is out for both Windows and Macintosh. Now the Widget Engine includes an XML parser to get at dynamic data, along with support for XPath. Frames make layout far simpler and more powerful. And now your Widgets run faster because of improvements in rendering and animation of images.
Using JavaScript and XML you can make Widgets that sit on users' desktops to provide fun and productivity during the day. What can you dream up using the new Yahoo! Widgets technology? Get the knowledge and tools to build 'em at the Widget Workshop and show off your creations at Widget Gallery.
JS is one of the most flexible languages available to create rich applications using web services, as well as the underlying language for creating Yahoo! Widgets and Yahoo! Music web plugins. We've created a central location where you can get links to our documentation, articles, tutorials, HOWTOs and other resources about using JavaScript with the Yahoo! Web Services and other Yahoo! APIs. Come join us in the JavaScript Developer Center!
We've added support for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) as an output format in all the Search and Maps Building Block APIs in addition to XML. New parameters enable you to get JSON output and to specify a callback function for easy processing inside JavaScript. The combination of JSON and JavaScript is exceptionally powerful as it makes you easy to use our web services data directly in your script without parsing. See the docs for each of the of the Search and Maps Building Blocks APIs or the Common JSON Documentation for more details.