Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Yahoo Puts Shopping API on the Clearance Rack

It’s time to start shopping around for another API to search for deals, prices and reviews. That it, if you use the Yahoo Shopping API (our Yahoo Shopping API profile). On March 11 Yahoo’s service will be discontinued, replaced by a “strategic partnership” that will leave developers sniffing for deals elsewhere.

The Yahoo Shopping team, to its credit, posted the news to developers with plenty of notice:

    After careful consideration, we have decided to enter into a strategic partnership with PriceGrabber to power the Product Submit functionality of Yahoo! Shopping as of March 11, 2010. As a result of these changes, Yahoo! will no longer provide the Shopping Web Services API, including Shopping Results (the “Yahoo! Shopping Syndication Services”) to you as of March 11, 2010.


There is no way to even browse the API methods available to developers without contacting the PriceGrabber business development team. And, without a price listing, developers are left assuming the service is out of their price range. We have an email into the PriceGrabber team and will update if we hear back.


Source:
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2010/01/11/yahoo-puts-shopping-api-on-the-clearance-rack/