Google Launches Developer Site

Google Inc. on Thursday launched a developer website that contains software tools for adding the search engine's services to web applications.

The site also includes discussion groups and links to all of Google's application programming interfaces, or APIs, which are used in developing applications that tie into Google services, such as AdWords, Blogger, Desktop Search, Gmail and web search.

Developers can get regular updates on new projects and tools on the site through any standard newsreader.

MSN Tests Shopping Search Engine

MICROSOFT'S MSN SHOPPING TEAM IS quietly beta testing a shopping search site, the company confirmed on Friday. The new product--which focuses on price comparison and customer ratings--will face competition from increasingly popular shopping search engines like Shopping.com, Become.com, and Shopzilla, as well as Google's Froogle, Yahoo! Shopping, and America Online's inStore. Justin Osmer, product manager for MSN, said the beta version, available at beta.shopping.msn.com, is very much a work in progress. "Now that the MSN Search engine has launched, we can very quickly innovate on top of it and offer more unique features and services," Osmer said in a statement. MSN's search engine officially launched last month.

Yahoo's Answer To AdSense

Yahoo appears to be testing out a contextual ad program for small websites, like Google's AdSense. The evidence is pretty solid; Overture ads are appearing on one well-connected blog, and Yahoo has been serving RSS ads for Boing Boing. The site ads are delivered by a JavaScript file called "ypn.js", which may refer to the Yahoo Publisher Network.