Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers blog

Yahoo! Answers is all about sharing content and knowledge, and the latest way of doing that is with the Yahoo! Answers API – now available on the Yahoo! Developer Network. For anyone scratching their heads, the Answers API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of tools we created to help you build applications that use Yahoo! Answers content.

A few months ago, we created a Flash Answers badge so that you could show off your questions and answers on your own website or blog. Now you can use the new Answers API to create your own badge, or build a custom Answers application designed specifically to show off your Answers prowess.

Using this API, you can access Answers content by user, search keyword, or category. These API’s are almost identical to what Yahoo! properties use, and we hope that you’ll think of new and interesting ways to view and use the content on Yahoo! Answers. We’ve also set up a Yahoo! Group for you to get tips, share ideas, and even brag about your applications.

With our latest update to the API, we have added a bunch of new fields and filters, allowing you to refine queries by question and answer, sort by date and relevance, filter by date range and region, and much more. For example, you can now query Answers using the same advanced search criteria we have today and return only results from one specific region.

We’ve used this API to build Messenger plug-ins, flash badges, and other Answers integrations around the Yahoo! network. We know that Yamsters have a lot of great ideas, and this new set of API’s is another way of giving the Answers community an opportunity to create innovative uses of Answers content. Needless to say, the best applications will be featured on our blog and in the Yahoo! Gallery, so let us know what you come up with!

Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team