Yahoo! To Be a Default Mobile Search Engine for AT&T Subscribers
by
on September 08, 2008,
Today Yahoo! and AT&T announce that from now on Yahoo’s oneSearch will power search queries on AT&T mobile portal MEdia Net by default. This move is absolutely logical since the two companies announced strategic alliance earlier this year.
Right now Yahoo! has over 60 partnerships with mobile carriers in various countries around the globe but today’s announcement makes AT&T the first US carrier to integrate Yahoo! Search right into their mobile portal for subscribers to use as the default one.
Today’s announcement basically means that from today AT&T subscribers sending a search query via MEdia Net portal will receive immediate access not only to search results from web pages but to Yahoo! News, weather forecast, financial news, photos from Flickr - same as you expect to see on the main Yahoo! page but in a slimmer mobile version. Along the traditional search results Yahoo! will also display links to downloadable content available right on the MEdia Net portal from AT&T, including ringtones, wallpapers or games.
Besides, Yahoo! promises to deliver information based on user’s intent for the search query - so to a user on the go searching for a movie they will offer reviews and various news stories about the movie along with show times for the movie in the local theaters while to a user search for sushi they will offer some of the local Japanese restaurants and reviews of such restaurants.
It is absolutely logical that search results will be accompanied with ads and this sounds like the most important part of the announcement. So now ads from Yahoo! advertisers will make it to the eyes of millions of AT&T subscribers - and reach them with the best possible targeting since the carrier knows exactly where this or that consumer is located and what local advertisers will be most interested in reaching this particular consumer.
It is also worth noting that Yahoo! also has a strategic partnership with T-Mobile so we will probably soon see a similar announcement from Yahoo! - this time with T-Mobile involved. Probably such partnerships will help Yahoo! survive in the search competition - at least in the mobile market - and also build an additional (and growing revenue stream).
