Open Search’s Graham Mudd discusses the benefits of Yahoo!’s new open search platform 

Earlier in the year, we ran an article about Open Search, a.k.a “SearchMonkey,” on our Search Marketing Blog. As a follow-up, we recently chatted with Product Marketing Manager Graham Mudd on how Open Search can impact publishers.

YPN Blog: What exactly is SearchMonkey, and what’s the goal of it?

Mudd: SearchMonkey is Yahoo! Search’s open platform. Our goal with SearchMonkey is to allow site owners, publishers and third-party developers to build applications that enhance the functionality and appearance of Yahoo! search results. These applications can be added by users from the Search Gallery, promoted by site owners and developers using a badge.

YPN Blog: How do publishers use it?

Mudd: They should visit http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey to get an overview of the program. Once folks learn the basics, we have full documentation and developer tools available for them to use.

YPN Blog: Sounds good. Here’s an obvious question: how much does it cost?

Mudd: Nothing. It’s free to all.

YPN Blog: How does it benefit publishers who are members of the Yahoo! Publisher Network?

Mudd: Well, we believe that SearchMonkey benefits all of the participants involved—publishers, users (searchers) and Yahoo!. By building more useful and attractive search results for their sites, publishers can see an increase in the quantity and quality of traffic from Yahoo! Search. And users, of course, benefit from a better search experience. This will likely increase user loyalty, which is a good thing for Yahoo!, too.

YPN Blog: So what does SearchMonkey mean for the industry as a whole?

Mudd: Semantic mark-up (RDF, microformats, etc.) is one of the primary technologies behind SearchMonkey. These technologies have existed for some time, and many agree they have the potential to make the web far more useful. Many site owners, however, have been reluctant to implement semantic markup because they haven’t seen a direct benefit in doing so.

YPN Blog: How do I qualify for Open Search?

Mudd: SearchMonkey is open to all sites and third-party developers.

YPN Blog: Sounds good. So, what do our readers need to do to get started?

Mudd: As a publisher, the most important thing you can do is share your structured data with Yahoo! Search using semantic markup, a data feed or page extraction. To get started, visit our overview page and then check out this overview for site owners.

— The Team

Barry Schwartz offers tips and tricks on driving traffic via social media

Getting the right traffic to your blog or site is the key to your success. Social media’s all the rage these days, and there are dozens of services out there. How can you use these services to help drive traffic?

We asked the advice of Barry Schwartz, one of the big guns over at Search Engine Round Table, which gets about 250,000 unique visitors each month. His advice is delicious. We think you’ll dig it.

Michael Mattis (M2): What social media sites do you use most often? Why?

Barry Schwartz: I use Twitter big time. I have downloaded this little application to my Mac, named Twitterrific, which helps me stay on top of my twittering.

Twitter is this fun little site where you basically type, in 140 characters or fewer, what you are doing at any given moment. For example, right before I began this interview, I twittered that I am doing an interview (here is that twitter, if you are interested). Twitter is fun and also keeps me up with those I have befriended. If you want to “follow” me on Twitter, just visit and add me.

You can set up a Twitter account for your blog or blogs. For example, I set one up for the Search Engine Roundtable at: http://twitter.com/seroundtable, and if you follow seroundtable on Twitter, you will find a link to all recent posts, within a ten-minute time period. My friend Danny Sullivan does it for Search Engine Land, TechCrunch has one, and heck, even the New York Times!

M2: Any others?

Barry: OK, let’s talk about Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit and Techmeme.

Read the rest of this entry »

Flickr be fine bootie for all ye publishers

Ahoy there! Did ye ken that today is the official “Talk Like a Pirate Day?”

What? Never heard of it? That’s surprising, because since the idea came to a couple of regular guys from Oregon way back in the mid-’90s, Talk Like a Pirate Day has become a phenomenon in offices around the world. Every September 19 finds secretaries and execs alike swinging from yard-arms from coast to coast and beyond, talking pirate, walking pirate, dressing pirate and acting pirate. Don’t believe me? Check out the Talk Like a Pirate Day’s Flickr pages.

Talk Like a Pirate Day soon got out of hand after being mentioned in humorist Dave Barry’s column back in 2002, and its founders, Cap’n Slappy (Mark Summers) and Ol’ Chumbucket (John Baur), were forced to enlist a webmaster… er… webwench, that is, to run the movement’s growing web site.

Yesterday I spoke with Pat Kight (aka, piratess Jezebel), about webwenching for this cutting-edge social movement and about using Flickr to enhance her web site’s landlubber (i.e., user) experience.

MICHAEL MATTIS: So…uh… when and why did you become a pirate?

JEZEBEL: Me ol’ mates Chumbucket an’ Cap’n Slappy Shanghai’d me, they did!

They ain’t too technical, y’see, an’ when Our Close Personal Friend and Pulitzer Prize Winner Dave Barry wrote about Talk Like A Pirate Day, they needed a Webwench. Now we get several million visits from the piratical at heart every September.

MATTIS: So what is it about pirates, anyway?

JEZEBEL: As me ol’ mate Cap’n Slappy likes t’say, “Pirates be FUN!” And, well, there’s the rum.

MATTIS: How did you get started with Flickr?

JEZEBEL: Ah, me hearty—I be a long-time fan o’Flickr, since afore it was a part o’ Yahoo! even. Last year, when fan photos threatened t’ scuttle our ship, we moved ‘em there t’ make things easy on us. ‘Cause pirates like the easy way.

MATTIS: How has it helped you on talklikeapirate.com?

JEZEBEL: It saves me time, mate! Instead o’ processin’ photos and hand-craftin’ the pages t’ put ‘em on, I can ship the photos to Flickr, slap on a label or two an’ be back t’ pillagin’ and plunderin’ with me shipmates before ye can say “Jack Sparrow.” And the sets an’ pages look all ship-shape.

MATTIS: What would you say to publishers considering using Flickr?

JEZEBEL: Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Ye don’t know what yer missin’!
 

There you have it, straight from the webwench’s mouth. Flickr’s like buried treasure, and X marks the spot.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Cap’n