Yahoo and Adobe announced a partnership to incorporate Yahoo search into Adobe products. The most important part of this? What SEW Blog noted Tim Cadogan saying in the AP Story:
For San Jose-based Adobe, the partnership will add online features to one of the software maker’s core products, Acrobat. The program is used by more than 500 million people and has become a common format for viewing documents over the Web and in e-mail attachments.
Under the deal, Adobe will first introduce a cobranded Yahoo browser toolbar that users can choose to install on their computers when prompted to download an update of Acrobat Reader. The toolbar an increasingly popular method of online search engines to stay constantly visible on a user’s Internet browser will feature links to Yahoo products and services as well as Adobe’s Web-based subscription service that lets people convert documents into the Adobe PDF file format.
Later, the companies said, the toolbar will add features such as the ability to quickly convert Web-based content into Adobe PDF files. Yahoo search will also be built into a future version of the Acrobat Reader, allowing users to search for more information from within the document without going through the extra steps of launching a Web browser.
“We call it being available at the point of inspiration,” said Tim Cadogan, Yahoo’s vice president of search.
In other words, search is breaking out of its box, so to speak, and moving into applications far and wide. This will not be the last such announcement you hear in this vein.
Hat tip: SEWBlog.
While this is certainly about search near term, it seems more likely that it’s the beginning of the “Web 2.0 meme” on Web Services.
Some brief thoughts from earlier today:
http://www.buzzhit.com/2004/10/briefly-yahoo-adobe-team-up-for-new.html