Yahoo has just announced an expansion of what it calls the Yahoo Search “Open Ecosystem”.

Yahoo has been a leader for some time in the Web 2.0 space with several applications and innovations such as photo site Flickr and adoption of OpenID. Recently Yahoo opened up their search application for more customization by developers.

Today’s announcement marks a stronger level of committment to new standards that will support the growth and development of the semantic web through the adoption of microformats – basically formats that help standardize the way applications can interact with data. Yahoo is supporting microformats including hCard, hCalendar, hReview, hAtom, and XFN

As we noted in a recent post about Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the future, the promise of the semantic web is extraordinary as it allows for richer, more helpful, and more navigable relationships between the billions of pieces of information flowing online every day.

Developers will also want to look for Yahoo’s soon-to-be-announced beta program to build “enhanced results applications” using Yahoo search, not to mention the developer launch party hosted by Yahoo at their Sunnyvale headquarters.

Diclosure: Long on Yahoo