Yahoo may have effectively put itself out of the running as a major search engine – but will mobile change all that?
Yahoo’s mobile homepage and mobile search are alive and well, in spite of their apparent throwing in of the towel insofar as major search engine-ness is concerned.This leaves Yahoo a more influental and competitive factor in mobile search than general search, where their sun is on the descent as Bing’s is rising. As the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal appears to be a lock, Yahoo mobile has the opportunity to use the Bing back end to drive search results on mobile devices.
Yahoo appointed mobile chief David Ko in charge of “audiences” in North America recently; reporting to Hilary Schneider. The company also assigned mobile product development to CTO Ari Balogh. But will Yahoo be able to remain competitive and develop apps for mobile products and the user experience as they become more extensively linked to PC use for smartphone users? Can the company show the insight and motivation needed to invest the engineering resources and prepare for the spending on mobile startups that will be needed in the face of fierce competition?
Yahoo supposedly exited search to save on R&D. Can they remain in the game where mobile is concerned or will that too soon be ceded to Google and Bing?
Hilary Schneider, executive vice president of Yahoo North America, spoke out concerning Yahoo’s commitment to mobile search at the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York:
“We’re focused on it as a priority every day… If you just look at the growth rates on mobile, they’re incredible, they’re extraordinary, but you have to just remember that they’re starting with a small base,” she said. “I really do believe that over the next five years you’ll start to see material dollars begin to migrate.”
“While we can’t predict exactly the rate at which the economy will move forward, we do feel like the significant headwinds are behind us,” she said. “We do feel confident that we have seen the bottom and that’s behind us… What I would say is, we absolutely are focused on how we maintain our search query volume.”
Tags: mobile search, Yahoo