Yahoo! pins hope on advanced search, mobiles in India

Globally, the Yahoo! board is yet to elect a new chief executive, since the ouster of Carol Bartz. However, that is not stopping the company from readying a road map to snatch marketshare from its rivals.

A few days ago, the company unveiled the Flickr application for mobile gadgets. The application is powered by the Google-backed Android software. It also unveiled enhancements to the popular photo sharing and storage service. Its new product, ‘Search Direct’, an advanced search feature, is expected to hit the Indian market in the first quarter of 2012. The company launched the feature early this year, and is planning an array of launches in this space.

"We understand users are changing, and the way they look at the web is also changing. There is a lot more content available on the web—like music, video and apps. So, when users search, they want accurate information instantly. We believe search products of the future, probably after three years, would provide answers and not links," says Shashi Seth, senior vice-president (search & marketplaces), Yahoo!.

The new search, according to Yahoo! officials, "is the next step in offering answers to user's search queries". Search Direct, the company states on its website, provides users current, relevant content, improved suggestions and a rich display format. It also displays answers instantly to users. Search Direct enables users to seek answers and navigate through the web using fewer keystrokes. It predicts search results as fast as a person types, character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond a list of blue links.

Yahoo! has a partnership with software giant Microsoft's Bing for sharing the search platform. According to the pact, Yahoo! and Microsoft's Search Alliance do not include the companies' display advertising, web properties, products, email and instant messaging. Therefore, analysts say Yahoo!'s advancements and innovations in the search business is also competing with Microsoft's search engine, Bing.

Yahoo!'s plan to introduce new products is also being viewed as a threat to search giant Google, which has already seen its share in the US slip in the last few months. ComScore data reveal Google's share of online searches in the US slipped from 65.5 in June and 65.1 in July to 64.8 per cent in August. Yahoo!'s share climbed to 16.3 per cent in August from 16.1 in July and 15.9 per cent in June, while Bing's share rose to 14.7 per cent in August from 14.4 per cent in July.

Yahoo!, says Seth, is adopting a new mantra globally, 'you search, we give answers, not links'. Yahoo!'s Search Direct, launched in March, is gaining traction in markets like the US. Seth believes the Microsoft-Yahoo! marriage for search (read 'Bing') "is witnessing good response from users, and has seen volume growth of 50 per cent". "India, with its growing mobile internet penetration, offers pastures for growth," he adds.

"We believe in the next five years, mobile search would be bigger than web search," says Seth. Currently, around 15 per cent of the company's overall search volume is accounted for by mobile devices, and this is growing at a monthly rate of five-seven per cent.

The company plans to monetise the growing trend of mobile applications. "Monetising of search results is directly related to users and the user base. We are developing products for mobiles with the mantra 'answers, not links'," says Seth.

The rise in video content in the virtual world also led to the company considering video solutions. Yahoo! also has a product for movies in India—the movieplex. Early next year, the company also plans to introduce a product to allow access to emails, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, on any device, anywhere in the world.