Don’t get fooled by the IPO buzz, don’t get stressed out about ads in email, and don’t forget about Yahoo while Google is blanketing search engine and traditional news media. Yahoo’s CEO Terry Semel reminded Yahoo investors and the rest of the web marketing world last night with this simple phrase; “Beware–we’re quiet…”
That’s right, Yahoo is up to something and that something is search. Yahoo launched their own search engine this year, made of a dash of Inktomi and a teaspoon of Overture – two huge acquisitions they made in the past year. Their Yahoo Search Technology was launched on the heels of the parting of a bizarre Yahoo and Google partnership, where Yahoo was using Google to serve their search results for close to 3 years.
“All we want to do is win, and that’s the only thing that excites us.”
According to the SFGate, Yahoo executives say they are working on 50 different search projects but provided only a rough outline of them. The focus of these search projects lies on Increasing relevancy, enhancing local and personalized search, providing access to a bigger index of Web pages and providing more frequent updates were all listed as priorities.
Yahoo also just landed the first large web media (and non-Yahoo owned) partnership for the Yahoo Search Technology index, grabbing the CNN properties contract from Google. And the Semel Machine is not stopping there, after Google stirred up the pudding with their GMail email planned launch – Yahoo has snuck into the kitchen and licked the spoon with their announcement of Yahoo Mail changes including 100 MB of storage and Messenger integration.
While Google is taking steps to become an unofficial portal with Google GMail, the new Google Groups, Google News, and the Orkut Social Mingling Service, Yahoo’s Semel reminds us all that they already have a sound base of loyal fans; “we thrive on competition, and the winners of competition will be our users.” Looks like we have ourselves a good ol’ search engine showdown going on, should make things interesting.
