March 7, 2007

Yahoo Uses Windows Mobile To Escalate Yahoo Go Reach

Yahoo! announced this morning a strategic partnership with HTC (High Tech Computer) to preload Yahoo Go on their Windows mobile phones.

"Since we launched Yahoo! Go 2.0 less than two months ago, there has been strong demand from the Windows Mobile community to get this innovative service on their mobile devices," said Marco Boerries, senior vice president of connected life, Yahoo!. "By partnering with HTC to put Yahoo! Go 2.0 on its mobile devices, we are bringing the true mobile Internet to an even broader audience around the world."

The partnership will help Yahoo rapidly grow their mobile reach. Yahoo Go offers "a unique product design, ability to personalize with content from across the Internet and a reinvention of search for the mobile phone through Yahoo! oneSearch. The innovative carousel design of the service makes it simple for consumers to navigate the selection of Yahoo! Go widgets, personal channels for e-mail, local information and maps, news, sports, finance, entertainment, weather, photo sharing and search" the Yahoo press release stated.

The press release went on to explain: Key features of Yahoo! Go 2.0 for Windows Mobile include:

-- Search reinvented for mobile consumers -- oneSearch(TM) is designed to recognize the intent of a search term and presents relevant content -- not just a list of web links to PC sites -- on the results page. Results are grouped by subject making it easy to read through and drill down to get more details.

-- Be local, no matter where you are -- The Local & Maps widget gives quick access to comprehensive local directory information for businesses across the US, enhanced with ratings and reviews from the millions-strong Yahoo! community. Interactive maps feature the ability to search directly for businesses, get driving directions and real time traffic updates.

-- Rich, highly personalizable content from millions of sources -- Current headlines and a breaking news ticker in the News, Sports, Entertainment, Weather and Finance widgets keep consumers connected to the information that matters to them. Consumers can customize to receive content from the millions of sources on the Web that publish in RSS.

-- Photo sharing keeps consumers connected to their community -- The Flickr(TM) widget integrates one of the Web's most innovative and prolific photo-sharing communities, making it easy to upload(1) and manage images from their camera phone. Consumers can also easily share photos, view their friends' pictures and browse or search the millions of images.

-- Streamlined e-mail keeps consumers in sync -- The E-mail widget allows consumers to quickly respond to, delete or compose new messages or view attachments with a single click -- all automatically synchronized with their Yahoo! Mail account in real time.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:36 AM | Permalink

February 13, 2007

Yahoo, Microsoft Get Mobile

Yahoo and Microsoft have each launched mobile search and advertising initiatives this week. Yahoo has introduced display advertising on its mobile-specific Web sites in 19 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia. It also released a new version of its downloadable mobile client, Yahoo! Go 2.0. The new "gamma" version features the ability for consumers to search directly from maps and share oneSearch results, news articles and the service directly with friends. Zach Rodgers has the details at ClickZ News.

Microsoft launched Live Search for Mobile at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, releasing v 1.0 of its client application for Windows Mobile devices. Features include category-based local searching, maps and directions, traffic, contacts list integration and "SMS a friend."

In even more mobile news to come out of 3GSM, InfoSpace announced a partnership with FAST to bring FAST's private-label search and advertising platform to InfoSpace's carrier partners in the U.S.; and AdStar announced plans to partner with Nokia to develop a private-label mobile advertising platform.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:51 AM | Permalink

October 4, 2006

Yahoo Rolls Out PPC Ads In Mobile Search Results

Yahoo is launching (in beta) paid-search ads in mobile in the U.S. and expanding its test program in the U.K. Only a "select group of advertisers" are initially included (it's not clear what the criteria are). But the number of advertisers will expand over time as the program rolls out.

According to the press release, "consumers will be able to click on the sponsored search results to go to the advertisers' mobile web site or a landing page to get more information about the advertisers' offerings, including the ability to call the advertiser."

Yahoo had already been running tests of mobile PPC ads in the U.K. and Japan.

According to CTIA-The Wireless Association, there are more than 194 million wireless subscribers in the U.S., with a market penetration rate of about 65%. In other countries, especially Northern Europe, penetration rates exceed 100%. And China claims over 400 million mobile phone subscribers.

Indeed, as Yahoo's Terry Semel and Google's Eric Schmidt have now pointed out multiple times (I'm paraphrasing), "There are more wireless devices in the world than PCs." As a result there's a great deal at stake in developing a viable mobile search capability and the advertising that goes with it.

According to an article today in MediaPost, which points to a study by mobile research firm M:Metrics, response rates to text (SMS) ads on mobile phones are "only" 7% vs. 29.1% or more in countries in Europe where mobile text ads are more common. Obviously a response rate of 7% is higher than average response rates to sponsored search online. There are several competing studies, however, that argue consumers are least interested in advertising in SMS vs. other mobile formats.

Not to confuse matters, Yahoo's new mobile PPC launch is not about SMS. Rather it's sponsored ads in mobile web search results.

Earlier this week mobile marketing firm Enpocket released the results of a study conducted by Harris Interactive with 1,200 mobile users in the U.S. Europe and India. The survey found general acceptance of mobile advertising deemed "relevant" by consumers. A majority of respondents (78%) said that "they would be happy to receive advertising that is tailored to their interests. Of those, 64 percent would be willing to provide personal details to be analyzed to improve relevance of targeted ads."

In general response rates in mobile tend to be higher than online because of relevance and less ad clutter -- there are fewer competing advertisers to click on (or call). PPCall firm Ingenio has repeatedly cited very high PPCall response rates for its advertisers in mobile, partly for that reason.

Mobile advertising is also great opportunity for local search. People are often looking for local information when they're on the go and have traditionally had to rely on directory assistance (DA), which has been limited by "what city, what listing?" rather than offering the open-ended ability to conduct a category search. Newer services are seeking to broaden the scope of DA, which is starting to evolve into voice-enabled mobile search. Yahoo already offers most of its properties on mobile devices and in June of this year research firm Telephia found that Yahoo Mail was the most visited site by mobile users.

Google shows PPC ads on mobile search results as well.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:07 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2006

Yahoo 'Goes' for Windows Mobile

Yahoo announced today the availability of its Go bundle of services for Windows Mobile. According to the release, the content and applications available include: Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Search (Local, Web and Image), Yahoo Photos, Yahoo Address Book and Calendar and Yahoo News and related content.

According to mobile analytics firm Telephia, 34.6 million U.S. wireless subscribers accessed the Internet from their mobile phones in June, 2006. Yahoo Mail was the number one mobile destination, while Yahoo Search was number 10:

1. Yahoo! Mail 2. The Weather Channel (Weather.com) 3. ESPN 4. Google Search 5. MSN Hotmail 6. MapQuest 7. AOL Mail 8. CNN 9. Yahoo! Weather 10. Yahoo! Search

Although the mobile market is still young, the competition and adoption are both starting to accelerate. Mindful of what happened to most ISPs on the Internet (they were simply ignored by users, except for the bill), carriers are seeking to protect against "disintermediated" on the wireless web. Accordingly, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that U.S. carriers fear Google and Yahoo and are trying to work with smaller companies "that they can control."

We'll see whether that strategy will pay off given the enormous brand equity that Google and Yahoo have online. For their part Yahoo and Google have struck a number of deals with handset makers such as Motorola and Nokia.

The Yahoo Go initiative is about creating a unified experience across multiple platforms: mobile, PC, TV. Here's SEW's original post when the service first launched.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:57 AM | Permalink

April 26, 2006

Yahoo Launched Go TV - DVR Service

I just noticed an update on the Yahoo Next page that introduces Yahoo! Go for TV Beta. The service allows you to "view photos, search for video clips and watch movie trailers on your TV." Plus it has full DVR features like TiVo. For more information on trying this out click here, you will need Windows XP, 40 MB free disk space, 1 GHz CPU and 512K RAM, plus broadband, TV ports and cables.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:52 AM | Permalink

April 7, 2006

Yahoo Go Mobile Search & Portal Tools Coming To BlackBerry

The Yahoo Go mobile search and portal applications announced earlier this year are coming to BlackBerry users. The companies announced a partnership yesterday. You can't get it yet, but watch this page for more. That page also has tips on how to get some of the same Go services now on your BlackBerry until the Go application makes it easier.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:02 AM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Terry Semel's CES Keynotes Includes Visits from Tom Cruise and Ellen DeGenres; Semel Says "Walled Gardens" are a Thing of the Past

Update: A vidcast of Terry Semel's CES keynote is now available for online viewing or downloading. Click here, then scroll to the "Most Recent Episodes" section. It's the first link.

This morning, Yahoo's CEO Terry Semel along with help from Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Cruise, gave his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Endgadget offers a detailed minute-by-minute review (very RustyBrick like) of his remarks.

90 million users in Yahoo Groups. 2 billion minutes/month on Yahoo games. 250 million Yahoo Mail users, supposedly largest in world. 2 billion images on Yahoo photos. "We always thought the Internet was never about one killer app." Yahoo Go products have 4 features - Seamless experience - Knows what device it's on and will adapt to screen etc - Personalized - Built on an open platform Yahoo Go involves little apps called Yahoo Widgets on a Yahoo Dashboard. It looks a lot like Konfabulator... + Yahoo is not going to make gadgets. We're here to partner with you + We have 400 million users who have spent a lot of time setting up their world + Personally I think walled gardens are a thing of the past

News.com also has coverage and mentions a couple of technical glitches Semel and COO Dan Rosenzweig ran into during the presentation.

From the Elinor Mills News article: While trying to demonstrate the new Yahoo Go TV, which allows people to access Yahoo content and services through a Windows XP-based PC connected to a TV, the Internet connection failed.

After Cruise left the stage, Semel said, "I guess if you're going to have a demo glitch, (there is no) better way to follow it up than with Tom Cruise."

I wonder if Mr. Cruise or various other A-List celebs are available to come onstage when I'm giving a presentation and have a technical glitch? (-:

Posted by Gary Price at 2:15 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Go Puts Yahoo Services Into Cell Phones, TV & PCs

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Go (link via PaidContent), a suite of products designed to let people reach information whether they're on their PCs, phones or using TV. The suite will be formally announced by Yahoo CEO Terry Semel at CES keynote today

Yahoo Go Mobile currently works only for Nokia Series 60 phones. It will allow you to sync your contacts, photos and mail with Yahoo. Yahoo says that in the near future, Yahoo Go Mobile will be preinstalled on the Nokia 6682 from Cingular Wireless. Beyond Yahoo Go Mobile, plain old Yahoo Mobile has a wide range of services, some of which involve no special software at all.

Yahoo Go TV is a coming application for Windows XP machines that allows you to see photo slide shows, listen to internet radio stations, search for movie info and clips and find video from the web. What's the TV part, then? It will work with a PC-enabled TV, News.com reports. Or, I suspect, a PC that displays TV in addition to a PC desktop, such as the Windows Media Center does. This application looks to tap into existing Yahoo products but perhaps make them easier for users to be aware of through a more customized software interface.

Yahoo Go Desktop / PC is another coming application that looks incredibly similar to the Google Sidebar. It allows you to apparently tap into and sync more easily with existing Yahoo services such as Flickr photo sharing, blogging on Yahoo 360 and Yahoo Mail. A new "social browser" is also promised, though this seems to be the sidebar or dashboard-like application I mentioned. From various reports, Yahoo Go Dashboard appears to be the name of this.

Yahoo To Launch Go Initiative; Mobile, Connected TVs & Desktop Access over at PaidContent has a nice summary, and v ia Russell Beattie, a number of articles have some additional details.

Yahoo goes mobile over at News.com says Yahoo Go Mobile will work in 10 different countries (I suspect this actually means it will work with 10 different Yahoo country specific editions, such as Yahoo US versus Yahoo UK). Yahoo Go TV is promised for download before April and remote recording of TV shows is planned.

Yahoo Launches Content Service for Phones from the AP covers Yahoo working with Motorola to bring Yahoo Go into its phones, though Google still looks to be the preferred search provider for Motorola, given its deal announced today.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:33 AM | Permalink

See More Posts From:

This Week | This Month

Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints & Permissions

Privacy Policy
Affiliates

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-564586-7"); pageTracker._setDomainName(".searchenginewatch.com"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); window.collarity_appid = "incmedia"; //> //>

Top Jobs

more Jobs