Everyone’s running the AP story (link in headline), so I’ll try to add a few thoughts:
1) If I search, it’s through the Google search toolbar; it’s on any machine that I use regularly. The thought of having to go to Google.com to conduct a search makes little sense to me. I suspect there are a lot of people like me (in this regard).
2) Knowing this, Yahoo has been aggressively pursuing toolbar distribution. I know, because I’ve talked to a couple of people who they’ve tried to hire for toolbar Biz Dev. And, because it was a core component of the contextual advertising deal they offered us at the beginning of the year.
3) Yahoo can’t turn to Microsoft (obviously), so who’s the next best bet for distribution to the desktop? Yep, Adobe. (You can bet they’ll be getting a nice slice of search result PPC advertising revenue.)
4) Adobe is now, IMO, trailing Macromedia pretty badly w.r.t. Internet apps. Adobe, especially with Bruce Chizen at the top, should be pushing down hard on (both corporate and) consumer Internet publishing. Adobe’s answer to iLife (substitute software, hardware and web search companies to your liking)? Blogging? Podcasting? Web strategy beyond PDF? A bit of a mystery…
5) I’ll be very disappointed if in two years we learn that this was really just about the toolbar. If, however, it’s about Adobe & Yahoo partnering to build and integrate Adobe software on top of Yahoo Web Services APIs…
I bet there is more to it than just the toolbar. Adobe has been using an RDF-variant to characterize a lot of metadata including editing history in their photoshop files for a while.
ScottR, Feedster