In its quest to improve the mobile phone search experience, Yahoo! yesterday announced that oneSearch with voice is now integrated into a shortcut on select Nokia Series 60 devices.
The company announced oneSearch with voice for select BlackBerry models back in April, so end-users can either type or speak queries. “The oneSearch shortcut for Nokia (Series 60) is one of the ways we’re helping make search more discoverable, simplifying it so it’s front and center the first time you log on,” said Yahoo! spokesman Cory Pforzheimer.
Unlike Google, Yahoo’s strategy is not to get involved in creating an operating system or handset because the market already is incredibly fragmented, he said. Instead, in order to reach the masses, it’s about making features compatible across handsets and above the layers of fragmentation. While Apple talks about getting the iPhone into millions of hands, “we’re talking about getting our services to billions,” he said.
Yahoo! is targeting the market through three avenues: carriers, device OEMs and direct to consumer.
With Blueprint, which the company announced last month, Yahoo! is offering tools for developers so their apps will work across a range of handsets. Yahoo will certify apps to run in Yahoo! Go, but it also is allowing developers to use its tools and distribute through their own chosen methods, so no certification from Yahoo! is needed in that case.
“Mobile is an area we feel we are dominant. We have an early and aggressive lead,” both in search and advertising, he said. Yahoo! has more than 60 partnerships with operators around the globe. It announced the launch on AT&T’s portal in September, making AT&T the first U.S. carrier to integrate Yahoo!’s mobile search service directly into its portal.