Yesterday, Yahoo’s top search execs had a little sit-down with reporters and bloggers, including BoomTown, about some of the search innovations it has been working on.

After the presentation, which focused on open, mobile, consumer intent and the “Web of objects, not pages,” which Yahoo is calling WOO (no, really, WOO), I got a chance to chat with Yahoo’s Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy, about all that, as well as competition with Microsoft and search leader Google.

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BoomTown liveblogged Yahoo’s “chalk talk” about search earlier today, which was an update of what the Internet giant is up to in the competitive space that includes Google and Microsoft.

Presenting at the event were Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy; Larry Cornett, VP of Consumer Products; and Marc Davis, chief scientist of Yahoo Mobile.

In summary: Kill the blue links! Intent! Objects! Open! Mobile! And, most of all, WOO!

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Later today, as BoomTown reported last week, Yahoo is putting on a search party.

Well, not a “party” party–although there will apparently be some lunch noshing at the “Search chalk talk,” during which top techies at the Internet giant will talk up the strategy for its more innovative products.

At its HQ in Silicon Valley last week, Google put on a similar show-off about its latest search innovations, as both it and Yahoo brace for the launch a major overhaul of the search offering of Microsoft, which is expected soon.

I’ll be liveblogging the Yahoo event, which begins at 11:30 a.m. PDT.

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Suddenly, search!

Earlier this week, Google put on a show called “Searchology” about its latest search innovations at its Mountain View HQ.

And next Tuesday, Yahoo will trot out its search extravaganza, called “Search chalk talk,” during which top search techies will talk up its more innovative products, such as Build Your Own Search (BOSS) and Search Monkey.

Could all this search blabbing have anything to do with a certain upcoming launch of a new search offering by a very rich and even more determined giant tech company?

As in: Microsoft and whatever it ends up calling its redone search product, code-named Kumo.

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Did Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang have an extra bowl of Wheaties recently?

If so, it could be a very good thing.

In what is most definitely much more than a glimmer of innovative spark for Yahoo, the company has opened up its search technology to allow anyone to build their own search engine in a project dubbed BOSS.

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Here is the official Yahoo release about its much-anticipated reorganization. It is almost exactly what BoomTown reported previously (Dear Yahoo PR, please send me my usual fee!), except for more details on the specifics of its tech reorg. And, I tried desperately to ignore the annoying “starting point” phrase, while Yahoo did not, of course!

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