Yahoo has seen the promised land of mobile searching — and it’s open. At the CTIA Wireless 2008 trade show in Las Vegas, the search giant this week unveiled a new version of its OneSearch technology, promoting it as an “open technology platform that overcomes the complexity of the fragmented mobile landscape.”
On Tuesday, Yahoo released OneSearch 2.0, providing mobile searching that, the company said, provides “instant answers to any query, not just Web links.” The technology is expected to be released through carrier partners in the current quarter.
Greater Relevance
With the newest OneSearch, users can begin a search with either a text entry or voice, although the results are presented in text. Publishers will be able to integrate their content, Yahoo said, increasing the possibility that consumers can find what they’re looking for.
The company gave an example of searching on a mobile device for “Italian restaurants.” In current search results, addresses and phone numbers would be included. But open results might also include reservation availability from restaurant-booking companies. Clicking on a resulting restaurant could bring up restaurant reviews offered from that kind of provider.
Searching for “London” could provide relevant information from providers of tourist services, instead of just results for that word.
Yahoo said an open platform can help consumers because it can lead them to services they are actually looking for, and can help publishers by giving them control over how their content is presented in the small display space of a mobile device.
Openness and Collaboration
OneSearch 2.0 can also provide direct entry into collaborating sites. For instance, searching on a person’s name can bring up results on major social-networking sites. Clicking on a result can directly take the user to search results on that site. An application-programming interface allows content partners to integrate their content directly.
Yahoo Executive Vice President…