Yahoo wants you to build your own search engine using its technology. It would sound more appealing if that business plan had worked out for Yahoo itself.

Must we really all now talk about Yahoo's BOSS, short for "build your own search service"? What compels reporters and bloggers to rewrite press releases? The Wall Street Journal reports that BOSS "is part of Yahoo's broader strategy to try to wrest the search spotlight from market leader Google Inc. by giving developers greater access to its plumbing." Valleywag reports: Boss is just another me-too product from a company that's forgotten how to do much else.

Okay, we can cut and paste and summarize with the best of them: With BOSS, third parties can "rerank and blend results," mess with the user interface, integrate news and images, and — in a bullet point we credit Yahoo's creative PR for including — allow their users unlimited queries. If it all sounds oh so very familiar, that's because Google introduced Google Custom Search Engine — basically the same product — way back in October 2006. I used it to build two search engines, one for literary allusions and another for finding event tickets. I'm not going to bother repeating the feat with BOSS.