Posted October 1st, 2007 at 11:11 pm by Vish Makhijani, Yahoo! Search
41 Comments » / Filed in: Trends & News
Yahoo! began as a human-powered search engine back in 1994. Okay, so it was Jerry and David’s guide to the World Wide Web, but the goal was the same as it is now — give people a simple way to find exactly what they’re looking for, whatever it is they’re looking for. And from those humble beginnings in Jerry and David’s campus trailer, while our search engine has evolved, our mission has stayed intact — providing the best search experience for our users.
Today, we evolve again with the introduction of the new Yahoo! Search. We’ve invested in research, design, and engineering to better understand your intent when you’re searching so we can do a better job of getting you to your answer in one search.
With this launch, we took some liberties with the search box itself, turning it into an interactive experience that senses when you need a hand. In a dropdown window on our home page and on our results page, Yahoo! Search Assist provides both query suggestions as you type as well as related concepts you can explore to get you to your answer by just pointing and clicking. Try it with searches like “energy savings” to see what we mean. In testing Search Assist, we found that users were 61% more successful in completing their task with this new search feature at their disposal.
We also realize that the right answer is often more than a link – it’s a photo or a video. So we’ve integrated this multimedia content directly into the search results to give you a more complete answer. Looking for images of Nepal? You’ll find thumbnails of Flickr images tagged with that query. Typing in “Dove evolution”? Chances are you want to watch the video, which we’ll serve up in your results as an inline video. No need to leave the page — give it a try.
And we’ve continued to improve the Yahoo! Search experience by giving you more of the answers you’re looking for directly on the search page for popular categories like music, movies, travel, athletes, health, restaurants, events, and local information.
This is just the beginning of some of the improvements you’ll be seeing from Yahoo! Search over the next few months. Our mission is to get you from “to do” to “done.” Give it a try and tell us what you think.
Vish Makhijani
SVP & GM, Yahoo! Search
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Posted October 1st, 2007 at 4:37 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
6 Comments » / Filed in: Behind the Scenes
I didn’t really need that chai to get my Monday going today. Instead, I got an email asking if I’d seen the new TechMeme Leaderboard. And, more importantly, if I’d seen who held the 65th position on that top 100 list.
For those who don’t spend double-digit hours in front of glowing monitors, TechMeme tracks the biggest stories in technology across the blogosphere at any given time. When your blog post hits TechMeme, it’s the equivalent of being emblazoned across Times Square (lightbulbs included). And the TechMeme Leaderboard, which debuted this afternoon, spotlights the sources that occupy the most real estate on TechMeme over a month.
Now, we realize our rankings will fluctuate wildly depending on how news- and link-worthy our posts are. We’ve had a great month and might not even make the cut next month. But we’re still pinching ourselves over here. In this hard-to-measure blogosphere, it’s days like today that make this great experiment called corporate blogging all the more worthwhile. Thanks for indulging this pat on the back.
Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor
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Posted October 1st, 2007 at 4:04 am by Steve Boom, Broadband & Mobile
2 Comments » / Filed in: Trends & News
Two is usually better than one. And today we’ve doubled the number of mobile phone users who have instant access to our oneSearch mobile search service. Not bad for a day’s work. (Ok, I exaggerate.)
We’ve just signed a global agreement to make oneSearch the main search service on Telefonica’s mobile portals. More than 100 million Telefonica subscribers, representing 15 countries in Europe and Latin America, will soon find their mobile Web experience infinitely more efficient and rewarding. Residents on the go in countries like the UK, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina no longer need to search through a sea of links to track down news, images, weather conditions, etc.
Customers will also have direct access to Yahoo! Mail through Telefonica’s Mail Express service as well as Flickr, so they can view and share their photos, check out their friends’ pictures, leave comments, browse, or search over a billion images contributed by the Flickr community.
If you’ve never tried oneSearch, it’s an intuitive service that’s designed specifically for your mobile phone — making it plausible to literally find what you need in one search, with relevant and instant results. Imagine that — a mobile Internet experience that realizes that your mobile phone isn’t a PC! We dare you to compare — just point your Internet-enabled mobile phone to m.yahoo.com.
We plan to continue this great global momentum for oneSearch. We’re working to make oneSearch one finger away through a host of high-quality carrier and device partnerships. As of today, oneSearch is the priority search service for over 200 million mobile consumers through seven major mobile operators in nearly 30 countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Our ultimate goal is to connect one billion mobile users worldwide, so you can count on more to come.
Steve Boom
SVP, Broadband & Mobile
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Posted September 28th, 2007 at 4:17 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
4 Comments » / Filed in: Yahoo! For Good
Last year, blogger Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation baited her readers to raise $30,000 for DonorsChoose with an offer to shave her head (see video below). This year, we’re getting in on the game.
DonorsChoose, the ultra-awesome web-based educational philanthropy that lets you play Santa to public school kids by fulfilling teacher wishlists, is hosting the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Starting Monday, more than 100 bloggers will challenge their readers to fund classroom projects this month. The likes of Engadget, TechCrunch, AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, and Anil Dash are rumored to be participating. And Yahoo! is joining Google, SixApart, and Federated Media by upping the ante with awards.
The blogger who motivates the most readers to participate in the Blogger Challenge will get lunch with Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang. And we won’t even make them shave their head. Unless, of course, they want to.
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Posted September 28th, 2007 at 11:04 am by Julie Han, Blog Team
2 Comments » / Filed in: Product Pulse
No such thing as a dumb question? Well, frankly there is and today is the day to ask one in honor of “Ask a Stupid Question Day.” Just do us a favor and steer clear of Yahoo! Answers. Here’s an answer to “Whatcha been up to?”
- Carpal thumbs?: Well, give them a rest by downloading the latest Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. Not only can you access Yahoo! Messenger now from any Internet browser, you can send text messages (SMS) to your pals on their mobile phones (just US, India and Canada for now) for free. And don’t worry, if they respond, you’ll get the reply back via Messenger. We’ve even got brand new, local language versions for Thailand, Indonesia, and new languages for India (nine of them in fact!). Read more here.
- Geeks get rewarded: Got all the (best) answers to questions about consumer electronics, computers and the Internet? Yahoo! Answers may have an iPhone for you as part of their Best Answer Sweeps. Give it your best shot here before October 12th. There will be ten winners and even runner-up prizes for top contributors, so it can’t hurt to try (keep in mind the five entry limit per person). Random prize drawings will take place a week after the sweeps end. Check out the tips on how to get a “Best Answer” status before you start dishing your know-how. Read more here.
- Doh! Another 4-year-old: Happy belated to Upcoming. At least we can rely on you to keep good time! Cheers to another event-filled calendar year.
Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.
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Posted September 27th, 2007 at 10:56 am by Vince Broady, Entertainment & Video
7 Comments » / Filed in: Behind the Scenes
BusinessWeek just released its annual “Best of the Web” user survey. Among the most beloved sites are some of the properties housed at our Santa Monica operations — Finance, Games, Health, Music, News. 
Since opening our office here five years ago, we’ve established a center of excellence by having Yahoos in residence in a major media capital. And our users and partners continue to benefit.
Today we’re planning some changes that also have our user and customer experiences in mind. We are streamlining the structure of one portion of our Santa Monica presence — our entertainment division — with a vision of offering a more integrated entertainment experience. That means we’ll be creating more synergies between our music, games, movies, TV, and omg! properties, making them more personal and engaging for entertainment hounds.
Also, rather than staffing entertainment business units around distinct properties, we’re freeing up resources to feed new areas of focus. We’ll be investing in the development of next gen media platforms, applications and services, creating cool new opportunities for third-party publishers and media companies while also harnessing the power of social media and user-generated content. For instance, consider the Yahoo! Music Video application on Facebook. Or bringing big entertainment brands to life online. Or making it effortless for big networks and studios to put their hottest video content in front of all our users, both on network and off.
A consolidated entertainment team also means increased accountability, faster decision-making, better focus, and the ability to staff our engineering, product, and design muscle against our most important priorities. And it allows us to redeploy our talent against big bets in other parts of the company. We’ll continue to look for areas to sharpen our focus.
We think this new approach is not only good for business, it’s better for our users. And we hope that continues to keep our properties in the company of the best.
Vince Broady
Head of Entertainment and Video
Photo from lauradahl.
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Posted September 25th, 2007 at 12:36 am by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
1 Comment » / Filed in: Behind the Scenes
Blake Jorgensen joined Yahoo! as our chief financial officer in May. A month later, we had a change in management and our new executive team embarked on an exhaustive strategic review of our business.
Was this what the co-founder of Thomas Weisel Partners had signed up for? Find out in this exclusive interview (I have connections), where you’ll also learn about Blake’s love of caffeine, big challenges, steep snowy mountains, the smell of onions, Crackberries, merriment, and good old-fashioned hard work. Oh, and numbers.
Read on, friends…
Yahoo! CFO Blake Jorgensen (tall guy) with his morning coffee brigade
Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor
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Posted September 24th, 2007 at 9:17 am by Neeraj Khemlani, Yahoo! News & Info
1 Comment » / Filed in: Cool Stuff, Trends & News
A little more than a week since we launched the first online Presidential debate (or mashup, as we like to call it), it’s time to announce the winner and share some additional “results.”
In our poll, which asked people who they’d vote for after watching the mashup, Barack Obama was the winner with 35% of the votes. Senator Obama squeaked by Hillary Clinton, who received 31% of the votes. To hear what Obama had to say about winning, check out our “People of the Web” story on the results, which includes an interview we conducted this morning.
But the votes don’t tell the entire story. We also looked at which clips the audience was actually watching and came away with some interesting findings:
- Hillary Clinton was by far the most watched candidate. Thirty-five percent of all clips watched were Clinton’s, while Obama came in second with 25%.
- The audience was most interested in the “wildcard” question, in which comedian Bill Maher surprised each candidate with personalized questions on a variety of topics. Forty-two percent of the clips watched were wildcard questions, followed by Iraq (34%), healthcare (15%), and education (9%).
- Women were more interested in education and healthcare, while men preferred the wildcard question.
- Older Americans were more likely to select questions on the topic of healthcare, while younger Americans were more interested in what the candidates had to say on education (that one didn’t surprise us much).
- The most popular clip among women in Iowa was Edwards on healthcare.
- Dennis Kucinich was one of the most viewed candidates in Seattle.
Part of what made the Presidential mashup so interesting to me was that we were putting control in Presidential forum like never before, and it was an exciting experiment to see what our users cared about most.
And speaking of users, you may be asking yourself how many people actually watched this debate. We had more than 1.1 million viewers, who streamed approximately 4.4 million video clips. Thirty-nine percent of the audience represented the 18-35 demographic. That means our debate attracted about 429,000 18- to 35-year-olds. That’s more from this demographic than any debate so far!
If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to check out the debate, you can do so here, or head over to Jumpcut to mash it up for your own site. We’re still in talks with the Republican candidates and hope to have an update on the next debate soon.
Neeraj Khemlani
VP, Programming & Development
Yahoo! News & Info
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Posted September 21st, 2007 at 12:45 pm by Julie Han, Blog Team
3 Comments » / Filed in: Product Pulse
Hobbits and wizards across Middle Earth are celebrating the debut of Bilbo Baggins 70 years ago. After you’ve enjoyed your pipe-weed, take a look at this week’s wizardry.
- Sorting A-Z: We heard ya loud and clear. For the gregarious Flickr-ites, now sort your many groups on Flickr by recent activity or in alphabetical order. And if you missed out on the Talk Like a Pirate Day pillage, check out some of the photos here to get yer limey fix.
- Looking for a new image?: Not only can you access many Flickr images by using Yahoo! Image Search, you can now do it in more than 25 different countries, regions, and languages (see full list here). And we’re now using Flickr metadata (tags, comments, titles) to surface photos (“public” ones, of course) for Yahoo! Image Search users. We’ve also introduced the Explorer Bar at the bottom of your image results page so you can see what related images others are searching for. For example, type in “Brad Pitt” and you’ll see that others are looking for photos of Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Orlando Bloom, etc. (only available for entertainment and location-related photos for now, but more to come).
- Idling with purpose: No more excuses for idle time checking out friends’ profiles when you should be looking for a job! Now do both (without the guilt). Download the Yahoo! HotJobs application for Facebook here and start searching for jobs, vote someone as the “most likely to quit the corporate world and move to Tibet to become a monk,” see where your friends have worked, and list out your top 3 fave companies. Or just refer your friends!
- Viva los Hispanos!: If you haven’t already heard, it’s Hispanic Heritage Month and Yahoo! Telemundo has unveiled two mini-sites to celebrate the successes and contributions of Hispanics across the U.S. Mosaico Hispano is a tribute site to those living the American dream, featuring video profiles and stories of remarkable individuals. Battle of the Bands will showcase the musical talents of 10 new U.S. Hispanic bands, featuring videos, interviews and an opportunity for you to vote for your favorite. Check them out, the sites go down after Oct. 31.
- The new Fall line: Need a refreshed look for the new season? My Yahoo! has a new background theme to add some autumn-ous spirit to your page. Check it out here or try one of the other seasonal themes on for size.
- Yummy preschooler: A quick shout out to del.icio.us for turning four this week! Cheers to being able to feed yourself, brush your teeth and combing your hair all on your own!
Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.
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Posted September 19th, 2007 at 12:52 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
2 Comments » / Filed in: Cool Stuff
Avast, me proud beauties. Be not a scurvy dog. ‘Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Get ye smartly to Flickr an’ use yer wee bilge rat to click on th’ Jolly Roger (or “skull and crossbones” for ye lubbers) staked upon th’ Flickr logo or click “Arrrr!” in ye language footer. Then all yer booty be talkin’ pirate. Upload yer treasures, feast yer eyes on booty from yer crew and o’er swabbies, arrrganize, and mark your plunder. An’ th’ Flickr scallywags have dug up th’ best buried treasure here.
Tell all yer mateys. Or walk th’ plank. An’ be quick about it. ‘Twill all be shippin’ out at midnight.
Nicki Dugan
Yer Bloggin’ Cap’n
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