Yahoo will open its mobile search to third-party content providers and
let users search just by saying a term or asking a question.
The OneSearch 2.0 tool announced Tuesday will also show up on the
home screens of some handsets, said Marco Boerries, executive vice
president and head of Yahoo's Connected Life Division, in a keynote
address at CTIA Wireless on Wednesday.
OneSearch 2.0 will bring up direct links to results from sites such
as Yelp and Facebook that will take users to those companies' sites.
For example, searching for a person's name will be able to
automatically bring up results from major social-networking sites
giving the number of members with that name on each system. A click on
that result will send the user directly into a results page on that
social network's mobile site. Similarly, a search for a restaurant will
be able to bring up links to customer-review sites such as Yelp and
Zagat. Which third parties come up will depend on relevance, Boerries
said at a news conference following the keynote.
Last year, partners could arrange for these kinds of results by
setting up business relationships with Yahoo. Now there is an open API
(application programming interface) for it, the same one used for
Yahoo's online search.
Yahoo has been aggressively pushing its presence on mobile phones,
which could prove a potent market for advertising and content alongside
the PC-based Internet. Despite Google's lead in online search, Yahoo
has a richer set of tools on its mobile browser site and offers a
downloadable application for phones.
Opening up OneSearch is just the latest attempt by Yahoo to make
strides in the mobile Internet through openness. In January, Yahoo
introduced new versions of both its mobile portal application and its
site for mobile browsers. At the same time, it released documentation
for developers to create "widgets" that can be added to both of them.
Developers are allowed to include display ads and sponsored search,
even from advertising networks that compete with Yahoo's.
"Opening up to other people's content ... can really drive extreme
customer value that is good for both of us," Boerries said. The open
search results are expected to start appearing in the second quarter.
With the voice-based search, users will be able to press a key and
then say a term or ask a question and have search results appear on the
phone's screen. In a demonstration at the keynote, answers to the
question "What's the best place to play craps in Las Vegas?" came from
the Yahoo Answers Web site. The system won't give any audio responses,
Boerries said, but it should help mobile search reach even low-end
phones, because the queries are processed on a server rather than on
the phone.
Voice search in English will be rolled out in July and August.
BlackBerry users can get a preview of the voice search function today
at http://m.yahoo.com/voice, and previews will be available later for
other platforms, Boerries said.
OneSearch 2.0 will also become easier to reach as it's placed on
phone idle screens so users don't even have to open their browsers,
Yahoo hopes. The company is writing downloadable applications for Nokia
Series 60 and Windows Mobile that will let users place it there
themselves, and it is working with Nokia, Motorola, LG Electronics and
Samsung to get OneSearch integrated into the idle screens of phones
they make. It will also approach carriers about this type of
integration. Idle screen capability is expected to start rolling out in
the second quarter.
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