TechCrunch has coverage of the opening of Yahoo’s Panama search platform’s API.  This is a good move for Yahoo, but Arrington raises a couple of other questions about the announcement:

Opening up Panama to free API access can be either of two things: inspired thinking or desperation. Given the huge lead time it took to deliver Panama in the first place this feels like a decision that is the former, after all nothing at Yahoo moves quickly enough to act from a position of desperation. Developers will likely pull apart the new program in the coming days and strictly from that viewpoint the offer will definitely be welcomed in the industry and could potentially throw down a stronger challenge in the quest to topple Google’s dominant Adwords platform.

Yahoo Opens Panama Gates with API Program - TechCrunch