Yahoo Follows Google on Mobile Search

An anonymous reader writes "Just a few weeks after Google introduced Google SMS, Google's mobile search service, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet media company Yahoo! . expanded its search services to the mobile market, said the company on Wednesday."

Comments

Addiction

[fembots]

The article mentioned Though the mobile content open a new revenue source, both Google and Yahoo! offer the service for free, but they admitted that they might commercialize the service once it get popular.

I guess it's like pr0n, first they offer you "free tours", next thing you know they're charging for everything and you're still paying for it because you're already addicted.

Will this also be an indication that other services like GMail, might be commercialized (other that the Ads) once everybody owns a gmail account, keeps 500MB of emails there and have no option (to download/archive) but to pay for the service?

Re:Addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

Wy pay when you could download the pr0n on eMule? I'm still an addict, but I just don't pay for it.

In related news...

[jmcmunn]

The phrase "to Yahoo" was officially coined as a verb/action today because Yahoo supporters picketed Webster's Dictionary headquarters on Wednesday, sighting the fact that rival search engine Google got to be a verb, and they did not.

Come on, it's competition, of course they are going to come out with a similar service. Why does this need to be front page news? It had to be the first thing we all thought of when we heard Google was doing it: "How long till MS and Yahoo follow suit?"

functionality

[mixtape5]

I think that the yahoo additions could give them the advantage. You are correct that If someone is searching for information then the Google may be better. But on a mobile device I could see someone pulling a picture of a celebrity because they are arguing with thier friends wheather a stranger looks familiar. The social aspect of a mobile devise does better with pictures. If I want Information, I'll use a laptop, not a phone.

Cherry-picking the Treo crowd

[87C751]

Yahoo's search is only available on certain carriers (T-Mobile isn't on the list), leading me to believe that they are seeking co-branding as a revenue stream. Also, they say that WAP browsers will only get a subset of the search features. Google's WAP search facility (wap.google.com, which has been around a lot longer than their SMS search), OTOH, acts as an automatic WAP proxy to re-render HTML into WAP so you can do a real web search and use the results from your WAP phone.

If this doesn't yet strike you as a "me, too!" offering, check out the Yahoo! search home page. That doesn't look anything like Google's home page, no sir!