In a move to build partnerships with third-party developers, Yahoo on Thursday introduced a new open Web services platform. Yahoo Search BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) gives outside developers unprecedented access to Yahoo's search technology, including the ability to re-rank and control the presentation of results.

The specific ideas, tools and nomenclature (prizes, wikis, etc) don't matter as much as the levels (scaffolding, support, investment). Scaffolding lets 1000s of people with 1000s of ideas play with ways to improve the open web, ...