Because your phone is not a PC

Posted March 19th, 2007 at 9:44 pm by Marco Boerries, Yahoo! Connected Life

 8 Comments / Filed in: Cool Stuff, Trends & News

Is mobile search the same as PC search? This is the question we are daring everyone to answer. Today we are launching Yahoo! oneSearch on our Yahoo! Mobile Web service, which is accessible to the more than 85 percent of you in the US who can use a browser on your mobile phones.

If you ever tried using mobile search before today, you’re familiar with the list of links you get as your search result, just like those you’re used to getting on your PC. But is that what you really want on your phone, where networks are not yet DSL-fast and some of you have to pay to load every page? All the consumers we’ve talked to back us up on this: You want instant answers, right on the results page — not a list of links. That’s just what Yahoo! oneSearch does — we give you the answers you want in just one search.

Let’s say you’re walking around New York City and are hungry for a slice. Just pull up oneSearch and type in “pizza” and boom — we give you all the information you need on one results page. We give you a list of local places to get a pie (with ratings from Yahoo! users), Flickr images, web sites, related news articles, products, and even information on “Pizza, The Movie.” It’s like getting a customized micro-site dedicated to your keyword. And if you click on one of the local pizza places, you’ll get a page that gives you the address, phone number (one click places the call), ability to get driving directions and even see full user reviews to help you decide if that’s where you want to eat.

We believe that 2007 will be the tipping point for mobile Internet services. The mobile networks are ready, the devices are advanced enough and services like ours are innovative enough to give you the great experience you have been asking for. We have seen that once people try services like Yahoo! oneSearch and Yahoo! Go 2.0, they keep coming back and using them again and again. Go ahead, give it a try and find the answer to our question for yourself.

When I joined Yahoo! through the acquisition of my company, Verdisoft, more than two years ago, it was the mobile opportunity that got me excited. Mobile is the future of the Internet — just look at the numbers! In 2005, there were 896 million PC’s and 2.14 billion mobile phones, and that gap is projected to only increase. By 2010, there will be 1.35 billion PC’s and 4 billion mobile phones. We just need to think differently about how to translate desktop content to the small screen.

To learn more about Yahoo! oneSearch, go to our mobile site on your PC, check out this review on Read/WriteWeb, watch this screencast, or try it for yourself on your mobile phone at m.yahoo.com.

Marco Boerries
Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Connected Life

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8 Comments Add your own

Javed N. | March 27th, 2007 at 9:03 pm

Marco: I’ve resisted posting here since reading your article due to the risk of being “banished forever”, but am taking a chance since I’ve found no other way of sharing this info. I will keep the comments short but can elaborate, if needed.
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Congratulations on making Yahoo’s entry into the mobile space in a big way…and ahead of Pay Pal’s mobile payment announcement of the same week!!!

I have a suggestion that may magnify Yahoo’s splash…..In addition to the capabilities of ‘oneSearch’ that require typing, imagine if you could add the ability to connect to mobile websites by simply ‘clicking’ on printed barcodes with a cell phone camera. The barcode, which is printed on virtually every package like a can of soup or a box of cereal will connect to whatever information the brand owner wants the consumer to see. Viewing movie trailers by scanning barcodes on posters outside a movie theater or getting description of a real estate property by clicking on a barcode on the ‘for sale’ sign are just a few examples. In the case of finding a pizza place, a click on a barcode printed on the pizza container, or on a paper placemat could access discount coupons for return visits, recipes, nutrition facts, etc.

The added capability will allow Yahoo to make any retail display, ad, publication or a product package interactive with the user. From contests, coupons, ticketing, direct purchases to real time information, the possibilities for accessing multimedia by simply clicking with a camera phone are many as proven in Japan. IATA, the International Air Transport Association will further validate use of barcodes when it requires replacing magnetic stripes on the back of boarding passes with printed barcodes.

The ‘patented’ technology is not too commonly known…..but exists.

Thanks.

Jeff | March 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am

Please make HotJobs a mobile site… It would be great to browse it on my phone, but to view it I end up having to use Google to translate it into something I can view on my phone.

Ojas Rege | April 2nd, 2007 at 10:05 am

Javed N.:

Ojas Rege here, director of mobile products for Yahoo!. We are familiar with that technology and have already seen some interesting deployments in Asia (check out our VP of Marketing David Riemer’s post here. It’s something to watch and could be a great way to increase consumer interaction on mobile.

Thanks for the comment.

gag | April 3rd, 2007 at 2:07 am

around the corner, their is always something new but its who surprises whom that matters ;-)

P.S.
as posted at deepfish feedback

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4/3/2007 6:22:20 AM UTC
I have not tried deepfish but i checked the demo and all the comments and my conclusion is stop further product development and i telling this for lot of reason but the main reason is the fact that you have not considered innovation factor in the mobile industry. I really dont think viewing pages is gonna be a problem in the future.
If you go ahead with this product then it should be so good future mobile innovation should center around deepfish. good luck.
Posted by: niqh |niqhAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

The Mobile Phone Man | June 28th, 2007 at 11:45 am

Thanks for your comments it good to read them. Make you think a little

Samue | July 3rd, 2007 at 9:42 am

Im having problems post to this blog is anyone else having the same problem

Josh | August 28th, 2007 at 1:37 am

“You want instant answers, right on the results page — not a list of links.” Yes this is what I want. In The Netherlands we also have mobile internet and as far as I know the search options are the same as on you own PC. I think oneSearch is a great development for mobile internet. I bookmarked it in my phone.

Billy | October 12th, 2007 at 2:16 am

I don’t think it wil work for now, maybe in the future. We will see

nice art. anyway

Grtz,

Billy