I don’t use the Research Task Pane much but these links have sparked my interest:

The Definitive “Hello World” Custom Research Service Tutorial

Build Your Own Research Library with Office 2003 and the Google Web Service API

Creating an Office 2003 Research Service Using the Amazon Web Service API

I’m most interested in the Amazon link, unfortunately it’s also the longest. 34 printed pages? Also “In order to use this content from Amazon.com, you are required to apply for a developer’s token ”