Yahoo Image Search's Fullscreen Slideshow

One of the features I've always wanted to see in Google Image Search is slideshows. Google lets you quickly go to the next image result using the right arrow shortcut, but a slideshow button would make things even easier. Picasa Web search used to have this feature. I know that webmasters will say that this wastes their bandwidth, so let's get past this.

It turns out that Yahoo already has this feature. Yahoo's search results are powered by Microsoft Bing, but Yahoo has its own UI and it does a pretty good job. Yahoo uses the same infinite scrolling interface (Google borrowed it from Bing), but things look different once you click a search result. Images occupy the entire page and you can click the small "play" button at the bottom of the page to start a slideshow or just use the "p" keyboard shortcut. There are some cool zoom effects for big images and, if you use a browser that supports the HTML5 fullscreen API (Chrome/Firefox for desktop and Android, Safari for desktop), you can click the "view fullscreen" button at the top of the page and only see the images. You may want to restrict the results to large images.

Yahoo has a similar interface for the mobile search engine and it looks more like the old Google Image Search for mobile. The new Google interface has some benefits if you don't want to see all the results sequentially, but the old UI placed more emphasis on the images. The nice thing is that Yahoo has the slideshow button in the mobile interface, as well.

Yahoo Mail Looks More Like Gmail

After Microsoft's Hotmail (rebranded as Outlook), it's time for Yahoo Mail to change its interface and look more like Gmail. The all-new Yahoo Mail adds support for conversations, custom themes for all devices and no longer requires you to pay for features like disposable email addresses, enhanced filters and automatic message forwarding.

"And if that wasn't enough, we're giving you a monstrous amount of storage, 1TB (that's 1,000 GBs), so you have ample space for all your emails and attachments." That's a lot more than Gmail's 15GB free storage shared with Google Drive and Google+ Photos. While most people will not even use 1% of Yahoo's 1TB of free storage, it's nice to no longer worry about storage. It's interesting to notice that this is actually a downgrade: Yahoo previously claimed that Yahoo Mail offers unlimited storage and now it "only" offers 1TB. Obviously, 1TB and unlimited are synonymous when it comes to email storage.

"This new desktop experience is available in English in the US, Canada, UK, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa with more countries and languages coming soon," informs Yahoo.

Marissa Mayer can finally switch from Gmail to Yahoo Mail, even though she still uses a command-line email client called Pine. Here are some screenshots.

{ Thanks, Sushubh. }

Yahoo Search Direct

Yahoo has recently launched a new feature called Yahoo Search Direct that aims to find answers for simple questions. "Search Direct is the first fundamental shift in search in more than a decade. For the first time, driving users to a results page filled with an overwhelming number of links is not the end game. We believe Search Direct will be the simplest and fastest way to find answers, not links," suggests Yahoo.

Yahoo Search Direct doesn't show new information, but it highlights the top results and the instant answers, while displaying them as you type a query. It's a simplified version of Google Instant that only focuses on the navigational queries and the queries that request simple facts.

When I tried Yahoo Search Direct, I noticed at least two features that aren't Googley. Yahoo shows a list of "trending searches" when you click on the search box and even highlights the first suggestion. This is both distracting and confusing for the average user that expects relevant suggestions.


Another feature that's not very helpful is promoting your own services, instead of showing unbiased suggestions. When you type "w", Yahoo shows only two suggestions that seem to be manually added: "Yahoo! Weather" and "Yahoo! Widgets". Type "m" and Yahoo shows 8 suggestions that are related to Yahoo.


Yahoo Search Direct works best for queries that already returned OneBox-like instant answers: [weather in london], [MSFT], [SF Giants] and the main advantage is that the answers are displayed faster. Google tried something similar with Google Suggest, but this feature is no longer necessary now that the results are displayed as you type.


Yahoo's tool doesn't even show previews for long-tail searches, so it can't replace Google Instant.


Yahoo promises that this is "the beginning of a new era in search", but this seems to be just an exaggeration. "We've been focused on refining how you use search, enabling awesome experiences for search intents about sports, news, TV, movies, local, finance, shopping, travel, weather, trending searches or pretty much anything else. But this is just the beginning. The coverage and rich content currently available in Search Direct is a fraction of the future state. Users can expect search coverage and the use of rich content to increase dramatically in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Get ready to be more social and personalized, through a richer and more interactive experience – it's going to be sweet."

You can try the beta version of Yahoo Search Direct at search.yahoo.com, but it will soon be available at yahoo.com.

{ Thanks, Niraj. }

Yahoo Search Clues

Yahoo launched a new service that shows information about the volume of searches, popular queries and demographic information about users. It's called Yahoo Clues and it's similar to Google Trends and Google Insights for Search. Unlike Google's services, Yahoo Clues is limited to the US and it only shows information for the past 30 days.

"With Yahoo Clues, you can discover and compare trending information for search terms of interest to you, or explore popular trending search terms on Yahoo. You can see search volume charts, demographic graphs, maps, or even related searches specific to a demographic group. We're also experimenting with an interesting feature called Search Flow, which offers a unique look at people's search patterns and the next most probable search term people try after searching for a query," informs Yahoo.


For example, if you compare the queries [Google Buzz] and [Google Reader], you'll notice that Google Reader is much more popular than Google Buzz, it's not very popular with teens, but it's very popular with women, which is rather peculiar.

Google-Yahoo Search Ads Deal

In June 2000, Google became the default search engine provider for Yahoo. The agreement lasted until 2004, when Yahoo launched its own search engine. Yahoo realized that you can actually make money from search, so it acquired Overture, a company specialized in pay-per-click advertising that also owned two search engines: AltaVista and AlltheWeb. Unfortunately for Yahoo, it moved too slowly and Google became the leader in both search and PPC advertising.

Yahoo's decision to temporarily outsource some of its search ads to Google was predictable, especially after the two-week test from April. Instead of being acquired by Microsoft, Yahoo chose to partner with a company that has a better search ads system.

"Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will select the search term queries for which - and the pages on which - Yahoo! may offer Google paid search results. (...) Yahoo! believes that this agreement will enable the Company to better monetize Yahoo!'s search inventory in the United States and Canada. At current monetization rates, this is an approximately $800 million annual revenue opportunity. In the first 12 months following implementation, Yahoo! expects the agreement to generate an estimated $250 million to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow. The agreement will enhance Yahoo!'s ability to achieve its goal to grow operating cash flow significantly, while at the same time providing flexibility to continue to invest in ongoing initiatives such as algorithmic search innovation and search and display advertising platforms. It gives Yahoo! complete flexibility to continue to use its Panama paid search results."

Yahoo gets a lot of value from this deal and is no longer pressured by investors to significantly improve the search ads. Even if the agreement has a term of up to ten years, I think this is a short-term deal and Yahoo is more motivated than ever to succeed on its own.

Google Blog is quick to announce that this isn't an anti-competitive move. "Yahoo! will remain in the business of search and content advertising, which gives the company a continued incentive to keep improving and innovating. Even during this agreement, Yahoo! can use our technology as much or as little as it chooses." Since the agreement is non-exclusive and Yahoo won't drop the search ads services, it's unlikely that the U.S. Department of Justice will block the deal.

In other related news, Google Talk users have a reason to rejoice. "Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users." Hopefully, this will actually happen, since the previous agreements with AOL and eBay didn't produce any visible effect and there's still no interoperability with AIM and Skype.

Related:
Search, ads, Yahoo and Microsoft
Could Google save Yahoo from Microsoft?
Yahoo tests Google's search ads

Update: Google Watch has some interesting quotes from the conference call. "We began by saying 'Is there a partnership that would make sense? Is there one that is strategic to both companies and in particular a partnership that would allow Yahoo to remain independent," said Eric Schmidt. "Then Schmidt turned cloak-and-dagger like, noting that the executives met in an empty building that Google owned in an unknown and unfindable location for most of us. Apparently, Yang, Schmidt, Yahoo's Sue Decker and others showed up, sometimes on bicycles."

Yahoo Search's Differential Features

Yahoo's strategy to increase the search market share is to add features that can't be found at Google or somewhere else. The problem is that these features need to be distinctive and useful enough to attract the attention and make people switch to Yahoo or at least use it a secondary search engine.

The first innovative feature added by Yahoo was Search Assistant, an integrated pane that combined autocomplete and related searches. Search Assistant was heavily inspired by Ask.com's left sidebar, but it included a distinctive feature that made it less obtrusive: the pane is only displayed if you stop typing for a couple of seconds or when your typing slows.

Google also tests a query suggestion feature and places a list of related searches at the top of the page, but Yahoo's implementation is more interesting.


This week, Yahoo started to add SiteAdvisor's warnings next to search results. "Safety ratings from McAfee SiteAdvisor are based on automated safety tests of Web sites and are enhanced by feedback from volunteer reviewers". Yahoo only shows warnings next to sites that use browser exploits, offer malicious software or send spam. Google also shows warnings next to web pages that may install malicious software, but McAfee SiteAdvisor seems to offer a more comprehensive protection and more information about the potential threats (you can also install a plug-in for IE or Firefox that works with the most popular search engines or manually find the testing results for a site).


Probably the most impressive new feature in Yahoo Search and the only one that's not yet live is SearchMonkey (an unfortunate play on GreaseMonkey), a way for site owners to enrich the snippets with structured information. "Site owners will be able to provide all types of additional information about their site directly to Yahoo! Search. So instead of a simple title, abstract and URL, for the first time users will see rich results that incorporate the massive amount of data buried in websites -- ratings and reviews, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data -- directly on the Yahoo! Search results page."

Yahoo uses semantic web standards to retrieve structured information from web sites, but users are the ones who decide if they want richer search results from a site. Yahoo will support a small number of microformats (hCard, hCalendar, hReview, hAtom, XFN), "some of the vocabulary of Dublin Core, Creative Commons, FOAF, GeoRSS, and MediaRSS, as well as RDFa, eRDF, and the OpenSearch specification".

Google chose a different approach - plus boxes that show additional information automatically detected: addresses, stock symbols, products etc. Google also lets you add subscribed links to search results pages, but very few sites took advantage of this feature.


If Yahoo manages to promote these features and site owners build interesting applications for SearchMonkey, people might discover that Yahoo has a pretty good search engine and search is not synonymous with Google. Exploring different ways to present search results will lead to a better user experience and to an improvement for all search engines, since the best features are usually copied by all of them. Yahoo Search hopes to become a serious alternative to Google by having a distinctive voice, but the history of Ask.com or Opera shows that being innovative is not the only necessary ingredient for becoming popular.

A Conversation About Google, Microsoft and Yahoo

The following video, created by Andrew Filippone Jr. and titled 'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett, analyzes the hostility between the three companies and Microsoft's absurd strategy to buy Yahoo. "The erudite conversations and sober intellectualism have been replaced by an absurd world where illogic, inane dialogues, and open hostility rule. The one-on-one interview between Charlie [Rose] and his guest begins as usual but quickly goes awry, so much so that Charlie is warned that, somewhere, a man named Steve is not happy."

The "dialog" reminds me of the repetitive and nonsensical phrases from Eugene Ionesco's plays and it's much more interesting than all the news about Microsoft and Yahoo.



Here's the transcript for those who want to understand the text better:


CR1: Welcome to the broadcast. Tonight, a conversation about the future of technology and the internet and mobile devices and all that. We talk to Charlie Rose for the first time. Welcome. The future of technology... coming up.

What will the web do to content in terms of high cost, expensive, time-consuming content?

CR2: My perception is... but... you would know this much more than I do. OK, tell me four or five of those that we are to take a look at that are start-ups that have a brilliant idea.

CR1: Microsoft and Yahoo.

CR2: Microsoft... Yahoo.

CR1: Microsoft and Yahoo.

CR2: Microsoft... Yahoo.

CR1: Microsoft

CR2: Microsoft

CR1: Yahoo

CR2: Yahoo

CR1: Microsoft

CR2: Yahoo

CR1: Microsoft and Yahoo.

CR2: Microsoft... Yahoo.

CR1: Why wasn't Yahoo...?

CR2: Yahoo... Steve is not happy with the process so far.

CR1: Microsoft and Yahoo.

CR2: Don't do that! Google... Google... Google...

CR1: No, we're not gonna do that. I can never get Craig to talk to me about his economic model.

CR2: Google...

CR1: No

CR2: Google

CR1: No

CR2: Google

CR1: No, we're not gonna do that.

CR2: Google

CR1: Radiohead

CR2: Blogs

CR1: Google

CR2: Google... Google... Google...

CR1: Microsoft and Yahoo.

CR2: Google.

CR1: Microsoft and Yahoo.

CR2: Google.

CR1: Microsoft...

CR2: Google

CR1: Yahoo...

CR2: Google

CR1: Google... Yahoo...

CR2: Yahoo

CR1: We're making all this money and now the stock's price is going through the roof. And how can we use this advantage to enter new markets, to expand our market share, to beat the hell out of everybody?

CR2: Steve is not happy.

CR1: What's gonna happen?

Update: And the answer for "what's gonna happen" is... "Microsoft officially pulled its offer for Yahoo". "After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," said a certain Steve Ballmer.

Yahoo Tests Google's Search Ads

{ Image licensed as Creative Commons by Patrick Woodward. }

In what may be the beginning of a new partnership, Yahoo announced that it will display Google ads next to its search results in a limited experiment. "The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!'s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries."

Yahoo explores new ways to defend itself against Microsoft's assault. "While there has been some limited interaction between management of our two companies, there has been no meaningful negotiation to conclude an agreement. We understand that you have been meeting to consider and assess your alternatives, including alternative transactions with others in the industry, but we've seen no indication that you have authorized Yahoo! management to negotiate with Microsoft." - an extract from a letter sent by Microsoft to Yahoo's Board last week.

While switching to Google's search ads means admitting the defeat, Yahoo could use this strategy temporarily. Yahoo has a lot of interesting projects in the mobile space, in search and communication, so the future looks better without Microsoft, a company with a different culture.

"If this test — potentially within the three-week window Microsoft set up to launch a proxy fight — pans out and Yahoo also manages to come through with a first-quarter report on Apr. 22 that looks stronger than the current low expectations of analysts, suddenly Yahoo will have some leverage it didn't have before. If the quarter tanks, though, advantage goes back to Microsoft," anticipates Business Week.

Update: Some interesting new developments. WSJ reports that "Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL are closing in on a deal to combine their Internet operations". Google already provides search ads for AOL, so Yahoo's test with Google ads is just "a way for Google to test how well Yahoo monetizes", to quote Danny Sullivan.

Yahoo to Support OpenSocial

Yahoo seems to be all about openness lately (Open Search, support for OpenID), so the announcement that the company intends to support Google's OpenSocial initiative shouldn't surprise anyone. OpenSocial is an API for writing social applications that work across multiple sites and many social networks started to work on implementing it: MySpace, hi5, orkut. From Yahoo's blog:

Yahoo! has always been about helping users find and share information online, and we love giving our broad and loyal developer community the tools they need to keep innovating on this front. Their echo our passion for creating the best Web experience for our users.

In this same spirit, we announced today that we’ve joined forces with Google and MySpace to create the OpenSocial Foundation, and will also begin supporting the OpenSocial standard. Industry consortiums such as this often start slowly and evolve over time. So far, OpenSocial is rapidly growing and adapting, but still in the early stages. We feel that this is the right step at this stage in its evolution. It’s no longer a trial balloon — it’s for real. We are taking this opportunity to help ensure websites and developers feel confident using OpenSocial as the building blocks for their new social apps.

OpenSocial Foundation has a web site that uses the recently launched Google Sites. The foundation will make OpenSocial more neutral and closer to becoming a web standard. According to a press release, "the OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1, 2008. The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform."

Two weeks ago, MySpace launched a gallery for OpenSocial apps, hi5 will officially open its platform on March 31st, while orkut has delayed the launch. Hopefully, this is the first step from a bigger initiative of making social networks more open and less self-centered.

Useful Content Restrictions for Yahoo Search

Google's advanced search options are useful, but they could include ways to define more restrictions for search results. Maybe you want to find pages that mostly contain text, web pages that reference videos or include tables. Fortunately, some these features are available at Yahoo, where you can use the feature: operator.

iraq gdp feature:table - web pages that contain tables, unfortunately including layout tables

la traviata feature:audio - web pages that link to audio files (e.g.: MP3s)

michel gondry ads feature:video - web pages that link to video files (e.g.: QuickTime videos)

AJAX feature:acrobat - search results that link to PDF files

beatles feature:activex - search results that contain the object tag (e.g.: embedded YouTube videos or any other Flash object)

feature:activex site:googlesystem.blogspot.com - all the pages from this blog that include videos

You can also use the operator to remove some classes of web pages. If you want to filter web pages that use JavaScript, add -feature:script:

java -feature:script - old tutorials for Java

lagrange interpolation demo -feature:applet - interpolation demos that don't include Java applets

To find web pages that link to files with a certain extension, use the linkextension: operator. For example, linkextension:ogg bach finds web pages about Bach that link to .ogg audio files.

Yahoo has another interesting operator (depth:) that lets you define the maximum number of subdirectories from your search results' URLs. For example, a search for google tips depth:1 will include www.google.com/help/features.html because it has a single directory, but not www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/04/google-tips-pulled, which has three directories. This could be useful to find web pages that are important relatively to the structure of a web site.

The operator has a special value that lets you search only homepages: -1, as you can see in this query: flickr depth:-1.

Find the sites related to Flickr that don't have a link from yahoo.com

I don't know if Yahoo's search engine is better than Google, but Yahoo inherited a lot of interesting features from AltaVista and Inktomi, two leading search engines in the '90s.

Related:
More Yahoo Search tips

10 Similarities Between YouTube and Yahoo

YouTube continues to be an independent company and has very little in common with the rest of Google's services. In fact, YouTube has more in common with Yahoo than Google:

1. YouTube's homepage includes content selected by editors, like Yahoo.

2. Both homepages are very cluttered.

3. Signing up for a YouTube account requires to enter a lot of information, including your country, your gender and the date of birth.

4. Both sites include a display ad on the homepage, unlike any other Google site.

5. Yahoo hosts images and other resources at yimg.com, while YouTube hosts them at ytimg.com.

6. YouTube is the only successful community site owned by Google, while Yahoo has a lot of social sites.

7. Both sites show undisclosed ads: YouTube promotes videos from its partners, while Yahoo uses features such as search shortcuts to show ads.

8. YouTube and Yahoo have similar welcome messages: "Hi, Your-Name!" and show the number of messages on the homepage.

9. Yahoo and YouTube use subdomains for the localized versions (e.g.: mx.youtube.com, mx.yahoo.com).

10. They were/are part of unpopular acquisitions.

Could Google Save Yahoo from Microsoft?

Microsoft is taking over Yahoo! by Gnal.
Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution.

Even if it's hard to believe that Yahoo will accept it, there's a simple way to make Yahoo more profitable: drop its search advertising service and use Google AdWords. Google has a better technology for ranking ads, a bigger inventory and higher click-through rates. If Google accepts to offer Yahoo most of the earnings, it's likely that Yahoo's profits will make investors happy again.

According to Wall Street Journal, "Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang to offer his company's help in any effort to thwart Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, say people familiar with the matter. (...) Google could play a role in attempts by others to outbid Microsoft, or by Yahoo to remain independent. Google could potentially offer money, or guaranteed revenue in return for a Yahoo advertising outsourcing pact, under that scenario."

There are rumors that Yahoo already negotiates with Google the outsourcing of its search ads in Europe. This could be a good news for Google, who also provides ads for Ask.com.

In a harsh post from the official Google blog, David Drummond is worried that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo could jeopardize Internet's openness: "Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets. (...) Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services?"

It's not clear if Google is truly worried by this potential acquisition, since a Microsoft+Yahoo company would be very far from Google's dominant position in search and search ads*, while Yahoo's absorption would take a lot of time. Microsoft has already admitted that it can't compete with Google online by trying to acquire Yahoo and it chose a very bad moment in Yahoo's history to force the acquisition.

* According to Microsoft, Google gets 75% of worldwide revenues in search ads and has 65% search market share in the US and 85% in Europe.

Search, Ads, Yahoo and Microsoft

While everyone comments about Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo, I think it's interesting to look back at the struggle to stop Google's domination in search and PPC ads.

Yahoo Inc. yesterday announced plans to buy Internet advertising firm Overture Services Inc. for $1.63 billion in stock and cash in a move designed to help the online giant exploit the growing market for sponsored search results. (...)

Overture, formerly known as GoTo.com, pioneered the approach of letting advertisers bid for the right to place their links alongside search terms and paying only when users click through to their Web site. Overture, based in Pasadena, Calif., claims 88,000 advertisers and licenses its commercial results to Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN.com and other Web portals. Google has copied Overture's business model and claims 100,000 advertisers. (...)

Overture sells sponsored search results to other portals besides Yahoo. Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com is one of Overture's top customers, and analysts consider it highly unlikely the Redmond, Wash., software giant will want to continue using Overture's ad network once rival Yahoo completes the takeover.

(Washington Post, July 15, 2003)

On Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he regretted not spending more on in-house search research and development in the past, but said the company has addressed the oversight and plans to unveil its own search product within the next 12 months.

"Not only do I think Microsoft is capable of building extraordinary search technology, I believe Microsoft is hell-bent on developing that technology in Redmond (Wash.) without a material acquisition," said Rohan. "That is the Microsoft way."

(CNet, March 26, 2004)

Rashtchy estimated that the search industry will reach nearly $7 billion in revenue by 2007, growing at a compounded rate of 35% each year. Those kinds of numbers attract a lot of attention. In 2003, Yahoo!, which was outsourcing its search to Google, wanted in on the action and paid $1.63 billion to buy Overture. Last month Yahoo! dumped Google and now exclusively uses Overture, officially declaring war. Sleeping giant Microsoft, meanwhile, was rumored to have made an unsuccessful stab at acquiring Google, and is now using its nearly infinite resources to improve it own search engine.

(Forbes, April 26, 2004)

Keyword search is the largest component of U.S. online advertising, and Google derives virtually all of its ad revenues from this category. The growth in that segment speaks for itself. Based on data from PricewaterhouseCoopers/IAB Internet Advertising Reports, the overall keyword search category generated $81 million in revenues in 2000, representing only 1% of overall online ad sales. Jump ahead to 2003, and keyword search accounted for $2.5 billion in revenues -- a hefty 35% of the total U.S. online ad-sales pie.

(BusinessWeek, June 11, 2004)

As previously reported, Microsoft's Internet group is developing a pay-per-click ad-bidding system that pairs search results with sponsored text messages from advertisers. Yahoo's Overture Services currently supplies MSN with sponsored search links, which complement MSN-sold "featured sites." (...) With the product, Microsoft will move into the mother lode of a multibillion-dollar ad business dominated by Google and Yahoo. Search-engine marketing is expected to be worth as much as $5 billion this year, and nearly $9 billion annually within four years, according to Jupiter Research. Microsoft's piece of the pie is smaller than the shares enjoyed by market leaders Yahoo and Google, and the software giant is hungry for more. Google fields 35.1 percent of the searches online, followed by Yahoo at 31.8 percent and MSN at 16 percent, according to ComScore QSearch.

(ZDNet, March 16, 2005)

Microsoft is taking on the great Google Money Machine with an inhouse answer to Google Adwords.

Step forward Microsoft adCenter, launched yesterday to pump out all-paid search traffic on MSN and other Microsoft online properties in the US. Microsoft’s adCenter replaces Yahoo!'s Overture as the paid-for search engine on MSN. The only surprise is how long it took Microsoft to make the switcheroo – predicted ever since Yahoo! bought Overture in 2003 – and confirmed this time last year by Microsoft at its annual MSN Strategic Account Summit.

(The Register, May 4, 2006)

The Internet search-advertising wars are getting hotter: Vowing to catch up to industry leader Google, Yahoo Monday will demonstrate an overhauled advertising system that promises to generate higher revenue and enlist more clients.

On May 4, Microsoft unveiled its own search advertising program and said it would invest up to $6 billion in a bid to catch up with Google.

Yet Google still easily dominates paid search ads — those little text ads that appear near search queries. The Internet powerhouse has made several enhancements to its search program as well.

Google says it hasn't heard anything from Yahoo or MSN to make it worry.

"There's been nothing that's announced that makes me want to change what we do," says Richard Holden, director of production management for Google's paid search programs.

(USA Today, May 14, 2006)

Struggling to make a dent in rival Google Inc.'s dominance over online search, Yahoo Inc. reported a quarterly decline in profit Tuesday but managed to match already lowered expectations. (...) During a Tuesday conference call with analysts, Susan Decker, who was promoted to president when Semel was replaced by Yang, acknowledged Yahoo's past failings.

She said the company had been slow to recognize emerging trends in online advertising and that Yahoo's management structure was overly complex, opening the door for more nimble competitors. (...)

Yahoo commanded an 18.3% share of paid-search marketing spending in June, up from May's 17.8%, Rohan said, but June's percentage is still the third lowest at Yahoo since January 2006.

"Google continues to dominate spending with over 75% market share," he wrote. "Panama stabilized Yahoo's market share slide, but has not reversed it."

Rohan said that even with Panama, advertisers see a better return on investment with Google, which boasts higher click-through rates at lower prices. "Yahoo's Panama was modestly successful but only temporarily halted Google's gains in marketshare," he said.

(Hollywood Reporter, July 18, 2007)

Despite the hopes of many and rumors that Yahoo would post "strong" earnings, Q4 2007 results were mixed, and net income was down from a year ago. In addition, CEO Jerry Yang said the company faced "headwinds" in 2008 and offered weak guidance but promised a return to growth in 2009. Investors were unhappy, and stock was down at one point 10 percent in after-hours trading (this morning it has recovered).

Total revenue in Q4 was $1.83 billion, which represented 8 percent growth of the same period a year ago ($1.7 billion). Full year 2007 revenues for Yahoo were $6.97 billion. Simultaneously, Yahoo announced it would be cutting 1,000 jobs.

(Search Engine Land, January 30, 2008)

Yahoo Will Add Support for OpenID

In one of the greatest moves since the Zimbra acquisition, Yahoo announced today that it will provide support for OpenID 2.0 at the end of this month. "Yahoo! (...) announced its support for the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework for all 248 million active registered Yahoo! users worldwide. OpenID, an open framework based on proven Internet technologies, enables users to consolidate their Internet identity, eliminating the need to create separate IDs and logins at all of the various websites, blogs, and profile pages they may visit in the course of their online session. In addition to the many leading Yahoo! services users already enjoy, anyone with a Yahoo! ID will be able to use the same ID for easy access to any sites that support OpenID 2.0. Yahoo!'s initial OpenID service, which will be available in public beta on January 30, enables a seamless and transparent web experience by allowing users to use their custom OpenID identifier on me.yahoo.com or to simply type in www.yahoo.com or www.flickr.com on any site that supports OpenID 2.0."

From January 30, any Yahoo ID will also become an OpenID that could be used to authenticate on any site that accepts OpenIDs (for example, to post comments on Blogger). Even if many important companies backed this authentication system, very few started to support it and this reduced its usefulness. Yahoo mentions that it will triple the number of OpenIDs to 368 million, although I don't think there's a way to calculate the total number of OpenIDs.

Hopefully this is just a start and many other companies, including Google, will become OpenID providers and will accept OpenIDs.

Related:
Blogger implements OpenID
Use your own domain as an OpenID

Social Yahoo Mail: from Contacts to Connections

Yahoo's CEO, Jerry Yang, made an announcement at CES about a new version of Yahoo Mail that will be more social and will integrate third-party apps.

"Jerry walked through a vision demo showcasing the possibilities of a more open Yahoo!, in this case focused on one of our key starting points, Yahoo! Mail. He showed how a smarter inbox could prioritize the most relevant connections in his life, both from Yahoo! and multiple social networks, and make all of his communications (email, IM, SMS, voice, status text, photos, etc.) simpler to manage. He then walked through how Yahoo! as an open platform—using Yahoo! Mail, Flickr, Yahoo! Local and Maps, and third party applications like Evite and eBay—could let you tap into the collective tastes, interests, and knowledge of the people you know and of the rest of the world. His example was trying to corral a bunch of very different friends, family, and execs for an awesome dinner. He was able to discover and explore what millions of people find interesting in Las Vegas (via Flickr and our TagMaps prototype) and what his dinner guests might enjoy as well."

It's interesting that the prototype allowed you to create "connections" by adding people from your inbox, your Yahoo Messenger list, but also from social networks like LinkedIn. So Yahoo tries to make the inbox more powerful by unifying all your connections and merging all their details in a single place. Based on information extracted from all these contexts, Yahoo Mail shows a list of the most important updates from your connections.

The third-party apps become tools that help you find information related to conversations and have access to your connections. The maps application can find a restaurant based on the preferences of those you want to invite for dinner.

Yahoo Mail moves from being a mail application to a social application that integrates mail in a broader context. Yahoo intends to connect you more with your contacts and to transform them into connections, links in a social graph.

{ Image licensed as Creative Commons by sdk. }

Related:
More screenshots from the Yahoo Mail prototype
Email connections
Updates from your Gmail contacts

Yahoo Adds a Search Assistant

After last week's major update for Live Search (which is now live for everyone), Yahoo updated its search engine. Like Microsoft, "Yahoo said the upgrade was the most significant yet since it dumped Google's search technology in February 2004 in favor of its own," according to LA Times.

Yahoo's search engine has less new things to show than Live Search. Yahoo introduced its own version of "universal search" by adding video previews and images from Flickr inside search results and by updating its impressive list of smart answers. Yahoo shows embedded video players for results from YouTube, Metacafe, Yahoo Video.


The new search assistant is somewhat similar to Google Suggest: it auto-completes your query. But unlike Google Suggest, it's supposed to show up only when you want to or when you need it. If you type some letters from a word and then stop for a couple of seconds, a new box opens and shows some suggestions. In the left side you'll see some popular ways to finish your query, while in the right side Yahoo expands your current query. You can select one of the suggestions or continue to type, while the list of suggestions updates. So this a combination between auto-complete and related searches, introduced for the first time by Ask.com. The only improvement made by Yahoo is that the assistant is not visible all the time.


The search assistant can be deactivate by clicking on the small "Off" link and manually triggered by clicking on the arrow located underneath the search box. Unfortunately, by trying to be useful, the search assistant is also annoying for some users. Here's one negative feedback from Yahoo's discussion board:

"Get rid of any of the so-called assistants. They take up space on the screen, slow down processes and insult everyone's [intelligence]."

Yahoo explains their new philosophy (my emphasis):

"The whole point is we want to get you from "to do" to "done." Whatever it is you want to do: research a topic, find a website, plan a vacation, research a medical condition, view a funny video, or any of the other billions of queries we get from users -- their intents expressed via a few keywords in a search box. One thing we've learned since launching our own algorithmic search engine back in 2004 is that at the end of the day, people really don't want to search; they want to get things done."

Obviously, searching is just a mean and not an aim in itself. But sometimes the search, the path to your aim is more interesting than the end-result. That's why, search engines should make this process more intuitive and more appealing.

All in all, it's clear that the most innovative search interface for this year was Ask 3D as it inspired many updates in Yahoo Search and Windows Live, while paving the way to mixing heterogeneous search results.

Promoting Your Own Services in Search Results

What happens when you have a search engine, but also some services that produce content? Well, you could use the search engine to promote those services or at least to leverage the fact that you have better access to their data.

Let's say you are Google and you own a very popular video site called YouTube. What do you do? Here's what Google did:

* YouTube was the first video site added to Google Video when it was relaunched as a video search engine. Even if Google added other sites, YouTube dominates the search results. Of course, YouTube has a lot of videos and a strong community that provides feedback, but Google Video still can't provide the right balance between YouTube and the rest of the sites.


* as part of the Universal Search, YouTube videos that appear in Google's search results have extended snippets that include thumbnails, links to related videos and the full video can be played inline. Google doesn't do this only for YouTube, but Google Video and YouTube are the only video sites for which you can play videos directly from the search results page. This decision was probably influenced by the fact that Google can't control the performance for other video sites and those sites didn't want to lose traffic.

But what if you are Yahoo and own a photo-sharing site called Flickr? The site doesn't have a dominant position like YouTube (6.42% for the US in July 2007, according to Hitwise) and an image search engine can easily integrate images from other sites.

Yahoo also shows extended snippets for Flickr images, but it commits the cardinal sin for a search engine: forget about relevance and promote arbitrary sites. For example, the first page of search results for [Google Reader] only includes Flickr photos, while you can find many other relevant images on the web (in fact, the first 49 Yahoo results are from Flickr). Other queries also show a very-difficult-to-justify Flickr domination. While Flickr is a great place to find photos, it's not very relevant if you want to find Vista screenshots: 9 from the first 20 results are from Flickr and all of them show Vista wallpapers. A search for minimal surface includes a single result from a math-related site, while the rest of the images are from Flickr.


The conclusion is that it's difficult to have a search engine and sites for user-generated content. You can be tempted to arbitrarily increase the influence of these sites and show biased results.

Yahoo Buys Zimbra to Compete with Google Apps

Yahoo paid $350 million for Zimbra, a collaborative online suite that integrates email and group calendar using an AJAX interface. The application can be installed on your server or you can choose from one of the many hosting solutions. Because it's open source, you can install it for free unless you need support or some proprietary components.

The ugly-yet-versatile application has many of Gmail's features (conversation view, labels, attachment preview), but adds IMAP support, attachment indexing, saved searches and shared address books. Zimbra Mail is closely integrated with the calendar, so you can always see the recent events and the events that take place in a day mentioned in a message. Zimbra also offers an offline version, mobile clients for many devices and great compatibility with the most important enterprise software.

"Zimbra is a global leader in email and collaboration software and its services are aimed at universities, businesses, and ISPs worldwide, which is a major driver of what made the company so attractive to us," explains Yahoo. The decision to buy Zimbra had a lot to do with the growth of Google Apps and the potential partnerships with universities and ISPs that could endanger Yahoo Mail's position. By combining its existing solutions with Zimbra, Yahoo could extend its influence in the corporate space. After all, both Yahoo Mail Beta (previously known as OddPost) and Zimbra Mail are heavily influenced by desktop email clients like Microsoft Outlook and sacrifice the performance for a familiar interface.

When Zimbra was launched, in 2005, many people were impressed. "I would go out on a limb and say that it combines the best of both Microsoft Outlook and Google's GMail," said Om Malik. Others think this is not the right approach: "To me, Zimbra doesn't in any way resemble my mental model of a web application; it resembles Microsoft Outlook. On the other hand Gmail, which is also an Ajax-based email application, almost exactly matches my mental model of how a web application should look and feel."

Both Gmail and Zimbra were revolutions that had a big impact. Here's how Zimbra described enterprise email's problems in 2005:

As an email administrator, are you happy with how much time you spend per mailbox on basic "care and feeding"? Is Email Broken? Web browsing and email are the two killer applications of the Web. Given the ubiquity of email, it is perhaps surprising that we users are not a happier lot. The frustrations oft associated with the email experience stand in contrast to the relative satisfaction of web browsing and web administration.

You can judge for yourself if Zimbra solved email's problems from this demo or this Flash tour. As for Google Apps, the competition from Yahoo could accelerate its development. Here's some free advice directly from Zimbra:

"Since all Google Docs are stored on Google's servers, public companies would face big Sarbanes-Oxley compliance issues if they deployed Google Apps. Zimbra's Web 2.0 messaging and collaboration platform provides enterprise customers with freedoms that Google Apps just can't provide, including the ability to archive for compliance purposes. They can use Zimbra as a hosted service or deploy it on-site. They can use it online or offline while retaining killer AJAX functionality. They can offer their employees access from any desktop, Web, or mobile client."

Yahoo's Web Messenger

In March, Google introduced an online version of Google Talk that extends the limited features previously available in Gmail. Yahoo didn't want to give yet another competitive advantage to Google, so they integrated the IM into Yahoo Mail and now offer a standalone version of Yahoo Messenger for the web.


Like Google Talk gadget, it's built in Flash, each conversation opens in a new tab inside the same window, you can find a contact and see his status. Yahoo's web messenger saves all your conversations and makes the history searchable from the same interface. Google Talk saves your conversations from any client, but the history is only available in Gmail.

While Google Talk's gadget is compact and can live inside your personalized homepage, in a new window or in your browser's sidebar, the new Yahoo Messenger for the web adopts the Meebo style of occupying and entire page. If you don't trust third-party clients like Meebo and most of your friends use Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live Messenger, the new interface can be useful when the desktop client is not installed or is blocked.

Yahoo Lets You Delimit Unimportant Content From a Page

I wrote last year a post about content separation that suggested a way to separate the main content of a page from other content that's not very interesting. Most of the elements of a template (navigation, footer etc.) could confuse search engines into thinking a page talks about something else than it does. As a result, a page could end up ranking well for unrelated queries and not so well for the right queries.

As a solution for this problem, Yahoo introduces a 'robots-nocontent' class that can be added to any HTML tag.

"This tag is really about our crawler focusing on the main content of your page and targeting the right pages on your site for specific search queries. Since a particular source is limited to the number of times it appears in the top ten, it's important that the proper matching and targeting occur in order to increase both the traffic as well as the conversion on your site. It also improves the abstracts for your pages in results by omitting unrelated text from search result summaries.

To do this, webmasters can now mark parts of a page with a 'robots-nocontent' tag which will indicate to our crawler what parts of a page are unrelated to the main content and are only useful for visitors. We won't use the terms contained in these special tagged sections as information for finding the page or for the abstract in the search results."

While this could be useful to reduce the importance of unrelated parts of your site (like AdSense's section targeting), I can't stop wondering if this isn't the search engine's job. For example, Google can detect the navigation links from a page (you can notice this if you use the mobile version), but I don't think it minimizes the importance of the keywords used in that area.