• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 23, 2005

Still in beta testing, Yahoo! Desktop Search was expanded to search Yahoo! Messenger archives and Yahoo! Address Book contents, a Yahoo! spokesman said yesterday.

When Yahoo!'s desktop beta launched in early January, it could scan hard drives for content in saved e-mails, pictures, Web pages, PDF files, and word processing documents. Pasadena, Calif.-based X1 Technologies, Inc. provided Yahoo! with the licensed technology.

At the beginning of the year, Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo!'s director of Media Search, said that he and his team were anticipating feedback, which they intended to consider along the way. Taking stock more than two months later, Horowitz said: "Based on what we're hearing, we're improving indexing and speed; making little improvements and adjustments to the interface; and further integrating the service with other data sources."

Yahoo! users can expect a number of additional updates to the service, Horowitz said. "We have so many features where a user can store information," he explained, "but it's more important to offer a truly holistic and intuitive user experience than to just include everything at once."

Horowitz would not say when Yahoo! expected to formally launch its desktop search service. Earlier this month, Google became the first and only search player to do so. Along with Yahoo!, both Ask Jeeves and MSN's offerings are still in beta. Google was also the first to release its desktop search application in beta in October 2004.

Besides searching e-mail and files stored on users' PCs, Google Desktop Search covers AIM--AOL Instant Messaging--chat sessions, previously accessed Web pages, audio, video, and photo files, as well as PDFs and Microsoft Word files.