• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 3, 2005

In yet another gesture of solidarity with Web developers, Yahoo! on Tuesday launched Yahoo! Shopping APIs so that software developers and site owners can make use of comparative shopping information from Yahoo!'s network.

"We're excited to see how developers will use this information," said Chris Saito, director of product development at Yahoo!

The APIs, based on XML results, include data such as product search results and merchant/price comparisons that developers are free to use as long as they attribute the information to Yahoo!.

Using the Shopping API, developers can create applications that search the Yahoo! Shopping database, displaying prices and enabling searches. With the Product Search API, developers can search by keyword, and limit the search to a specific merchant, price range, or product category, and filter merchants according to their Yahoo! User ratings.

The Price Comparison Grid API gives developers access to millions of products from its merchant base, some of which are included in the rankings because they have paid Yahoo! to be featured.

The move illustrates Yahoo!'s ongoing strategy to work closely with the developer community and early technology adopters as a way to keep talent and innovation fresh. Other areas of Yahoo!'s growing network that have made use of this practice include RSS, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Music, Flickr, and Yahoo! Search APIs.

At the end of July, Yahoo! bought Pixoria and its data-tracking Konfabulator software, giving its users access to the open platform for running "widgets," or mini-desktop applications for displaying fluid data such as stock quotes and weather reports. Konfabulator has an involved and loyal developer community--with more than 1,000 third-party widgets and approximately 200,000 users, according to a Yahoo! spokeswoman.