Yahoo launches Shopping Comparison API tool

Here’s something new for any developers out there. The Yahoo! Developer Network has recently added a new shopping web services application program interface (API). What the hell does that mean? Well, if you’re so inclined you can use the new API to create your own applications that do things like comparison shopping and product search. According to Yahoo, their database has “millions of product offers and thousands of merchants.” Yay for consumerism!

The API includes three main shopping web services: catalogue listing, merchant search and product search. The catalogue listing does just that – lists the individual offers on Yahoo Shopping’s buyers’ guide catalogue. The product search (surprisingly) allows you to search for products, and the merchant search allows you to get the dirt on who’s got the goods.

Like other Yahoo Developer Network products, you’ll need an application ID to track your application, and you can download Yahoo’s friendly software development kit (SDK) with lots of developer goodies.

All this talk about a shopping web services API got you all hot under the collar? It’s OK, all you need to do is go here and start your developer fun.