• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 8, 2009

Yahoo Mobile will have an option to tap into Microsoft Bing's back-end infrastructure for search if needed -- but not until the deal meets regulatory approval, David Katz, vice president for the Americas at the Yahoo division, told Online Media Daily.

Today, Yahoo Mobile pulls information from a variety of sources, including 10 blue link search feeds. It's available in 32 markets on 1,900 devices, up from 17 markets on 400 devices four months ago. Three new mobile applications launched last month: Flickr, Finance and Fantasy Football. Yahoo offers about seven apps for the iPhone, and three for the BlackBerry, as well as numerous search applications that go across platforms.

Yahoo Fantasy Football -- the only application of the three recently launched that supports advertising on iPhone and BlackBerry -- recognizes search sports queries, so it pulls information from Yahoo Sports on the PC. It serves up scores and schedules first, followed by teams and rosters. The ad units expand and run video. Brands can include links, downloads and streams to social media sites, such as Twitter.

Subway and Toyota recently became the debut sponsors on Fantasy Football, along with Research In Motion (RIM). The ads will run through the football season. When asked whether Yahoo gave away the mobile advertising, Katz says that both made a cross-platform media buy, spanning from PC to mobile. "Yahoo Mobile advertising has moved beyond the giveaway phase," he says. "Something we've always suspected, but now we have data behind it, is that the way people use the PC and their mobile device is complimentary. We see spikes during certain times of day for PC, and then spikes during other times on mobile device."

Katz says that most of the request for proposals that Yahoo sees include mobile. In fact, his guess puts that number at between 60% and 70%.

The ads are built into the experience. The mobile device will display interactive features, such as the ability to find store locations. Another technology advancement prevents the application from closing to launch the advertisement. "Many of the early app advertising provides a nice PowerPoint presentation, but ends up a disjointed user experience," Katz says.

Toyota took advantage of a feature in the application platform called an HTML canvas. It allows Yahoo Mobile to render the Toyota mobile site in the app. The site has the dealer locator and content on the full line of Toyota vehicles, all from the phone. Back-end analytics gathers engagement metrics with ads, as well as the typical time of day and region.

Today, Yahoo Mobile doesn't target ads based on consumer behavior on the device, but in time that could change. The type of targeting offered today ranges from time of day and carrier to device and location. The division also provides targeting based on consumer behavior, but not the behavior of the person using the phone -- rather, it provides profiles about the person collected on the PC. "We offer behavioral targeting on the phone, but using information from profiles on the PC," Katz says. "We will continue to look at the market and make judgments as it develops."

And while it all may sound a bit complicated and convoluted, the stumbling to find the correct explanation revolves around Yahoo's quest to protect consumer privacy.