Yahoo announced a “new suite of services for the mobile user” today. More details, head here.
Release is in extended entry.
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Yahoo! Search Goes Mobile
to Help Consumers Find Local Information, Images and Resources Whenever and Wherever They Want
Yahoo! is Combining its Leading Search Technology and Mobile Internet Expertise
to Deliver a Unique Search Solution for Consumers on the Go
San Francisco, CA – October 27, 2004 – Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company, announced the debut of a new suite of search services for mobile users at the CTIA conference today. As part of Yahoo!’s commitment to extending its leading services beyond the desktop, this new search offering enables mobile consumers to search for local information, images and Web resources on mobile devices. The service launches today on Yahoo!’s wireless Internet portal on several major carriers across the United States.
“The launch of Yahoo! Search for Mobile is a crucial step in providing consumers with a new and powerful point of access to our search products,” said Dan Rosensweig, chief operating officer for Yahoo! Inc. “With the launch of Yahoo! Search for Mobile devices, we’ve taken our expertise in providing mobile Internet services and our Yahoo! Search Technology, and combined that with our understanding of consumer’s wants and needs. We are empowering consumers to get what they want, how they want it, when they want it and where they want it.”
Take Yahoo! Search with You
Yahoo! Search (search.yahoo.com) has created a new mobile Web search experience for consumers, on multiple devices and across multiple networks, that is easy to use, and presented in a full-color, graphical way. Yahoo! Search now brings relevant, comprehensive and useful information to the mobile environment for consumers on the go. Consumers can get started using the service on a data-enabled mobile device by going to Yahoo!’s Mobile Internet site or simply typing in mobile.yahoo.com. For more information on carrier and device availability from the desktop go to http://mobile.yahoo.com. Key features of the new mobile search include:
Yahoo! Local
▪ Local information about businesses across the country – from the Web’s the No. 1 destination for people looking for local information online
▪ Everything from restaurants to dry cleaners – including business name, address, phone number and a full-color map with driving directions.
▪ Access to saved and recently used locations from desktop and ability to directly place a call from the search results page
▪ Professional and community generated ratings
Yahoo! Image search
▪ Search for and view thumbnails of more than one billion images
Yahoo! Web search
▪ Access to relevant and comprehensive search results powered by Yahoo! Search Technology (available only on html capable mobile devices)
▪ “Search Shortcuts” that enable quick access to information, including weather, stock quotes, sport scores, flight information and more. For example, consumers can search for the latest score on a baseball game by typing in a team name and the word score, and the first result will be an updated score of the current game along with the time left in the game.
Extending Yahoo! Beyond the Desktop
Through Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! focuses on extending key Yahoo! services beyond the desktop, providing an integrated PC-to-Mobile experience and making the most of the mobile environment. As the number of mobile consumers continues to grow rapidly, Yahoo! Mobile has rolled out mobile extensions of key services in the past year such as Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Photos, across multiple carriers. Yahoo! continues to improve and innovate on its offerings for mobile consumers and works closely with the major mobile carrier partners to deliver these to the widest possible audience.
“Yahoo! is committed to partnering with carriers to give consumers the most robust and integrated Internet services across mobile devices,” said Doug Garland, senior vice president, Yahoo! Mobile. “By bringing together our strong consumer relationships and knowledge with our deep experience in successfully developing mobile services that integrate the desktop experience we have built truly differentiated and relevant mobile search experience.”
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading provider of comprehensive online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!’s global network includes 25 world properties and is available in 13 languages.
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Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.
All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners
Contacts:
Yahoo! Inc.
Nicole Leverich, 408-349-5583
nicolelw@yahoo-inc.com
Fleishman-Hillard for Yahoo! Inc.
Tara Kirchner, 415-318-4121
kirchnet@fleishman.com
Vodafone’s Future Vision
http://www.vodafone.com/section_article/0,3035,CATEGORY_ID%253D1600%2526LANGUAGE_ID%253D0%2526CONTENT_ID%253D216753,00.html
Mobile is very much the future of search – the new horizon that is just starting to be tapped. There are far more mobile handsets in the world than computers and more time spent with a mobile phone at your side than sitting next to a PC. Mobile is no longer just the networked communication medium for voice, its quickly becoming the preferred networked communication medium for data. This is especially true in underdeveloped countries such as India and China where most people don’t own a computer but do have a mobile handset. This shift in mobile utility is shifting the very foundation of search.
As many of you are all too aware, mobile search differs greatly from web search due to the limitations of the medium. Its difficult and time consuming to type long search queries on a mobile device, the display is very restrictive, and data transfer rates are still very slow. Mobile searchers of today aren’t interested in viewing large web pages or entering lengthy urls, they want pinpoint answers to short and simple information requests with limited data transfer requirements. They want to know where the nearest coffee shop is, the score of last nights Knicks game, or the current price of Yahoo’s stock without the hassle of visiting a slow web page or searching a huge document domain. Traditional search on the web responds to queries with links to information sources, not the information itself. This model does not work within the restrictive mobile domain – mobile searchers want information, not recommendations where they can find the information or they’re not going to put in the effort to use the service. It is in this light mobile search is changing the search landscape, and changing it for the better. Mobile search, because of its limitations, is actually redefining and improving search in a manner that web based search never sought to achieve.
Within the last 6 months there has been a huge surge in new mobile search services, including offerings from a host of new upstarts (4Info, UpSnap, Synfonic, etc) and the major players (Google, Yahoo, etc). These companies are introducing new features of search that we have never before see – information instead of links to information.
Take the new service 4Info for example (I’m choosing this service for its breadth of search features and, from what I’ve found, superior search quality over all others. I leave you to make your own decision, although this is also the only service you can try out on the web so you will be forced to use your restrictive mobile device to test others). 4Info’s current SMS search offering has an extensive collection of information domains to search against, everything from 411 style local directory listings to real time sports scores, stock data, flight times, weather, etc. If you type in a query such as “Score New York Knicks”, “Knicks”, or “what is the knicks score”, they return not a collection of links to New York Knicks information sources, but the information itself, the actual score of the game. The restrictive nature of mobile devices has forced them to provide what you really want when you search, an answer to your query.
The job of search engines/utilities within the web domain has always been that of information mapper, indexing the collection of available information/content sources and providing links to those sources when one queries. With the new addition of mobile search, search services are now forced to be information providers. Now, they must actually answer your query, not just respond to it. Let me be the first to say, “Finally!!!
its me amber.