Jennifer Zaino
SemanticWeb.com Contributor

Startup SemantiNet has extended its relationship with Yahoo since launching its Firefox browser plug-in that helps people discover content they are not actively looking for. That technology, dubbed headup since we reported it here (“SemantiNet Hits the Internet Stage“), is now enabled with Yahoo! Fire Eagle geolocation and BOSS (Build your Own Search
Service) support, adding to its support for Flickr, Upcoming and Delicious.

Of leveraging the FireEagle API, founder Tai Keinan says the geolocation abilities open up new avenues of interest for users.

“For example, if you are using Fire Eagle and you go to Flickr, [with headup technology] you can see a picture of a nearby place, because it knows your location,” and those images were geotagged with the same location, he says. “Or if you look at a band you can see which events are closest to where you are at. It’s a novel way of leveraging location-based services.”

Leveraging the BOSS open search web services platform API is more of a backend play that aids in SemantiNet’s own ability to produce relevant search results and analysis of content. BOSS gives start-ups like Semantinet access to Yahoo! crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and infrastructure to build next-generation search solutions.

According to Keinan, since SemantiNet began utilizing BOSS, the quality of search results has improved significantly. “BOSS is a behind-the-scenes type of instrument,” he says. “It helps us understand key terms and things in different articles to improve our search.” Keinan notes that headup is now able to better distinguish between objects with the same name – Las Vegas, the city, and Las Vegas, the TV show, as an example. “This is considered a really difficult challenge and Yahoo BOSS has really simplified it,” he says.

Keinan also notes that headup is now taking advantage of Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Contacts. How might this work for users of SemantiNet’s service? A Yahoo Contacts user might, for instance, import his contact list to gain more information about leads or friends. Or you might, for instance, see a friend on Facebook and note she works for a particular public company, and from there discover how that company’s stock is doing or other relevant financial data and news articles about the firm (in case it’s time to alert your friend to start looking for a new job!).

“The idea of associated browsing is what we are e trying to promote,” he says. “So you are using headup to jump from one object or thing to another, from a person to a company they work for to their product or a similar product. When it’s working as it should, you create a seamless browsing experience where you are always focused on the thing or object that interests you.”

Towards that end, Keinan says that Yahoo is doing a tremendous job in terms of opening up its data sources to out-of-site consumption. “This is in line with the way we view the Web — make it easy to connect users to information without forcing them to go to specific sites.”

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