Get Discovered by Millions on YOU Open Platform for Search

Disclaimer: This blog post was published prior to You.com’s latest AI advancements and may not reflect our current capabilities. You.com has transformed from a search engine to an AI assistant. With a foundation in search and the team’s AI expertise, You.com was perfectly positioned to enhance LLMs with live access to the Internet to address issues around hallucinations and transparency. As such, You.com is capable of tasks ranging from searching online to writing an essay, debugging code, creating digital art, solving complex problems, and more. Learn more about getting the most out of You.com.

You.com also offers its core technology through a suite of self-serve APIs. Get complete details about the YOU API.

This year alone we have seen three different challengers to Google. First, Reddit was hailed as a better place to find what real people say. Then, TikTok was mentioned as a Google replacement for Gen Z. Currently, chatbots and large language models are considered by some to be better. We can learn two things from these waves. One, people are looking for a better alternative right now because the current monopoly is not serving its users well anymore. Two, none of these three alone can actually replace a search engine. The way to build the next generation of a search engine instead is to integrate all three and then continue to build more such search apps. We define search apps as sections in the results page that provide useful content and actions, that users can vote on and which everyone can build into an open platform. That is what we are announcing today: the beginning of an open, equitable, feature-rich, fair platform that allows everyone to contribute to a new kind of internet portal for millions of users.

Introducing YOU Open Platform for Search

YOU Platform is your place to get discovered by millions of users and generate revenue with You.com, the search engine taking on Google. All you have to do is build a Search App. On average it takes 45 minutes.

How do Search Apps work?

Search Apps are custom applications built right on top of You.com. Each one adds functionality to the core search engine so that users can find summarized information or complete a task. Some apps are well known, like a weather forecast app. Other apps summarize shopping sites and large forums such as Target, Etsy, Reddit, StackOverflow, and All Recipes. Users use these apps to quickly shop online, discover solutions to coding problems, find interesting discussions and recipes, and more. There are even AI-powered Search Apps that provide functionality never before seen inside traditional search engines. For example, YouWrite, YouCode, and YouImagine allow users to write, code, and create art using AI.

Search Apps appear for users on any relevant query. Some apps can be monetized. Monetization options do not influence the ranking, and users still hold the ultimate control of their search results. Users can upvote, downvote, pin or entirely block an app in their preferences. Upon submission, apps must pass security, speed and privacy approvals before they are ranked in search results.

Why build a Search App?

By building a Search App, external developers and organizations can gain independence from Google with more traffic and revenue. You.com has grown over 400% in the last 6 months and has millions of highly engaged users (50% retention).

We also make building apps easy!

• Create low-code apps in minutes using our custom templating language
• Access fully featured APIs and documentation
• Easily manage your apps with your Developer Dashboard
• Join a community of developers and engineers building the future of search

You.com is designed to empower users to take back control of their search experience with time-saving, customization, and privacy features. By joining us you will help build an internet that people control.

Who’s already built on You.com?

You.com has already onboarded 15 apps from external developers, with 130 more underway.

On our search engine you’ll find apps such as:

• – Looria utilizes AI technology to find, aggregate, and summarize 1000s of organic product reviews and prices to enable consumers to make the best shopping decisions.
• – Lexica, a search engine for AI images. It features a database of over 5 million AI images.
• – YouImagine uses a new AI algorithm called Stable Diffusion to let users generate any image they can imagine, right within the search results.
• – ListenNotes, a podcast search engine that shows notes and audio transcripts by people, places, or topics from the most comprehensive podcast database online.
• – Price.com is an all-in-one savings platform that uses AI to helps users maximize their savings through comparison shopping, exclusive coupons, and competitive cash-back offerings from over 4,500 merchants and over 15,000 stores.
• – Unstoppable Domains — helps users find the perfect .crypto domain that fits their blockchain project. Domain ownership is for life — no renewal fees, gas fees, or hosting fees.

“Consumers face many challenges in the current environment, including inflation and other issues straining their budgets. Allowing shoppers to discover the best prices directly on You.com is amazing.”

– RJ JAIN, Founder & CEO of Price.com

How to build an app

Get started on docs.you.com. Our team created comprehensive and user-friendly documentation for you.

When you’re ready to build, choose from a flexible set of UI components and construct low code apps on editor.you.com. You can also review past submissions, update, or resubmit apps via a Developer Dashboard.

Want to see YOU Platform in action? Check out the tutorial below.

We hope you’ll join the community building the next generation of search! Learn more about YOU Platform on developers.you.com.

About You.com®

You.com is the search engine that you control — your choices, your time, and your privacy. We combine the power of users’ choices with artificial intelligence and natural language processing to enable people to get back control over their information diet — without the manipulation of big ad tech from past eras of the web. The platform is extensible and developers can build apps that run within the results pages. You.com was founded by Richard Socher, former Chief Scientist at Salesforce and the fourth most-cited researcher in natural language processing, and Bryan McCann, who led natural language processing teams at Salesforce. The company is backed by Marc Benioff, Jim Breyer, Radical Ventures, Day One Ventures, and others.

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