Yahoo Goes Mobile with Search and Images
Yahoo yesterday unveiled their latest weapon in the search engine wars with Google and Microsoft – their mobile phone Yahoo. Nevermind desktop search or free email accounts, Yahoo is now bringing their search, local listings, and even images to mobile phones and portable devices. Yahoo is also bringing a touch of VOIP to their wireless portal, which may be a result of mass wireless broadband optimism.
On Yahoo Search blog yesterday Neeraj Choubey, Y! Mobile Product Manager, announced the new technological rollout “The Mobile version of Yahoo! Local shares data with the on-line version. So not only can you use ratings to find the plumber with the best service or the best pizza place, your personal preferences will follow you onto your cell phone. Save a location on Yahoo! Local and it’ll show up on your mobile too.”
Choubey even points out that Yahoo Mobile is giving access to the full database of Yahoo Image Search “Image Search helps you pass the time by browsing the 1,000,000,000+ images we’ve found on the Web. Who hasn’t performed a vanity search?” Well, I haven’t performed a vanity search yet, but perhaps the image search will be well paired with the mobile Local search, giving users the chance to check out the decor of a local restaurant before even stopping in (that is if others have moblogged or uploaded photos of the places).
Although both Google and Yahoo! are currently offering these services for no charge, the companies admit that they might look into commercialization of services once they get popular. The cure for that will probably come in the form of AdWords, Overture Sponsored Links, or maybe even a version of Click-to-Call which FindWhat is working on down in Florida.
Tara Claishan of Research Buzz broke some news on Yahoo Image Search the other day. Tara explains that Yahoo Images search now has over a billion images. Google Image Search, for those of you playing along at home, counts itself as having something over 880 million images.
Yahoo’s Image Search interface is very basic, almost Googlesque — and does it strike anyone else as funny that the more people get broadband, the starker search interfaces get? Anyway, there’s an advanced search that allows you to filter by size, type, color, and domain. And yes, there’s a filter.
A search for “Nintendo DS” got 3,421 results. Results include thumbnails (large thumbnails), image size (in both pixel and k), and URL of the original results.
Speaking of mobile phones and images, the Blog Search Engine and IceRocket have just launched a new MoBlog Phone Pics search. Give a search for Yahoo!
