*** Go directly to the Y!Q Link Generator ***
Y!Q for Publishers is a way to embed Yahoo! search into you weblog or website. Since it launched in February, it has not caught on. The only place I ever see it (besides here) is Yahoo! News, where it is used in a literal way for encyclopedia-style link queries for the names of countries, actors, former presidents, etc. Yahoo! even had a contest for people to see who could implement it in the most interesting way and most of the winners of that contest don’t use Y!Q any longer.
There is so much more people can do with Y!Q to improve the quality and interestingness of content on the internet. Here are the cool things about Y!Q for Publishers:
- Allows you to add parenthetical thoughts and further reading that goes beyond just a link. You can add text that appears above the search results to define a term or provide context
- With a well-formed Y!Q query, you can pretty much game the results so that you can deliver the results you want the user to see. Of course, this can change through time as the search results change, but that is another cool thing about it– the “meaning” of your Y!Q links change through time. Dynamic text.
- Allows you to add images above the query. Again, instead of just adding a “straight” image that illustrates the link term, you can add meaning by putting an unexpected image there. Link the phrase President Bush to a picture of a horse’s ass, for instance. The text can be straight and the image can provide more.
- Allows for surprises. When you code a Y!Q link, sometimes Yahoo! adds image results, News results, etc. So much linking on the internet is so damn literal and controlled. We need more hyper and less link! See an example of what I’m talking about here on this weblog about my father’s letters to the editor— the links all have title tags that add meaning and the links often go to non-literal places that provide a secondary, additional thought about the text. Y!Q can be used as a tool for this stuff.
- Ability to provide one phrase for the link texy and another phrase for the actual search query. the query can then be populated in the search box inside the Y!Q box. Again, allowing for cool enjambments that do more to add layers of meaning to text.
Here’s why I think Y!Q for Publishers is not succeeding:
- Adding the necessary javascript for the links to work is mildly geeky. All you have to do is put the script in the head of your HTML or blog template, but that is beyond the reach of a pretty big portion of the publishing audience
- Way too hard to create the links themselves. The code has to be UTF-8 encoded, which is beyond me. Y!Q Link Generator solves this.
- Not integrated into any common publishing software– not even Yahoo! 360. Geek Extreme did a good job of publishing a Y!Q Mambo integration (I don’t do Mambo, so I can’t test). There’s a WordPress plugin which installs pretty niftily, but you still have to code the links themselves.
Here’s the moves Y!Q for Publishers should make in order to be useful:
- Integration with Bloglines and other RSS readers. It seems a simple matter for them to just place the necessary javascript on their pages.
- Integration (real integration) with TypePad and other blog software as another top-level button just like “bold” link” add picture”, etc. Having an easy “add Y!Q link” is the key to acceptance.
That’s really it. Y!Q for Publishers is a super-powerful tool that can help make web content better. More hyper, less link! Go directly to the Y!Q Link Generator and get started.
