• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 9, 2007

Aiming to gain the early advantage in mobile search, Yahoo Monday unveiled a new service designed to give users faster, more specific answers to cell phone queries. The oneSearch software is part of a revamped version of Yahoo's Go for Mobile service that also includes applications for e-mail, local directory information and photo-sharing.

Tailored to the mobile screen, oneSearch aims to reduce the number of clicks consumers have to make to find information. Entering a simple query such as a team name will bring up the score of its latest game along with a team schedule, photos and related articles so users don't have to jump around to different sites.

The new application also includes features to help streamline search such as the ability to remember previous queries and auto-fill technology to speed up entry of common terms. To boost distribution, Yahoo also announced that the latest mobile version of Yahoo Go will be included in various devices made by Motorola, Nokia and Samsung Electronics and Research in Motion.

Search and search monetization are two of the most important areas of focus for Yahoo in the mobile realm, according to Ojas Rege, the company's senior director of global mobile products. "Search on the mobile phone is going to be extremely important because it's one of the few front doors to the Internet," he said. In addition to sponsored listings at the top and bottom of mobile search results, Yahoo plans to also start offering display ads for oneSearch during the first quarter. Although Rege wouldn't provide details on this effort, he said Yahoo is spending a lot of time educating existing advertisers about mobile marketing. "They're anxious and eager to give it a shot," he said.

Yahoo is hardly alone in its quest to conquer the mobile search market. Medio Systems Monday announced a partnership to supply its white-label mobile search to T-Mobile, after completing a similar deal with Verizon last year. Google, meanwhile, has struck a deal with Samsung to include applications including search, Google Maps and Gmail on certain of the handset maker's phones. And mobile software startup 4Info announced that its "one-click" search service was now available via mobile Web browser as well as through text-messaging.

Driving these companies' mobile ambitions is the huge installed base of wireless customers, amounting to approximately 200 million in the United States alone. While mobile search is still in its infancy, Internet and wireless companies envision big market potential based on the success of paid search listings online.

Eclipsed by Google in traditional Web search, Yahoo still has a chance to win the mobile fight. "Yahoo has an opportunity to establish a leadership position in mobile that would help the brand overall and have some beneficial aspects for the desktop as well, said Greg Sterling, principal at Sterling Marketing Intelligence. He added that if Yahoo's oneSearch gains traction, it will build on its suite of mobile applications that link to the company's existing desktop services.

Likewise, William Ho, a senior analyst at market research firm Current Analysis, said that so far Yahoo has done a better job than Google of packaging its Web services for the mobile platform. But having to download the Yahoo Go software remains a barrier to faster adoption of the service by mobile users. Ho said Yahoo will need to forge more deals to have its mobile software pre-installed in handsets or featured on carrier decks to gain critical mass in the United States.

The major carriers have generally been reluctant to tie up with the likes of Google and Yahoo for search, opting to partner with white-label services such as Medio and JumpTap. But that may be starting to change as Sprint Nextel in November signed a comprehensive agreement with Microsoft to provide search on its mobile network.