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MACAU—Yahoo! Inc., the Internet destination with the
highest traffic in the world and a global Internet-
services company, now offers Yahoo! Answers and
Wikipedia content on Yahoo! oneSearch in the Philippines
as part of continuing efforts to improve the delivery of
quick answers from a variety of sources and increase
content information available to mobile Internet users.
At the
Yahoo! Mobile Congress ongoing here this week, the
Internet company also announced strategic mobile
partnerships with nine leading mobile operators in
Asia-Pacific, boosting access to information for people
on the go.
The
content infusion also allows users to benefit from the
views and opinions of the largest knowledge-sharing
community that has over 95 million users and relevant
data obtainable on the reference site.
This is
an addition to consumers’ access to various integrated
contents from Flickr, a currency converter, news, other
web sites, financial information, weather conditions,
flights information and Web and news images.
Yahoo!
oneSearch is one of Yahoo!’s Internet applications for
mobile handsets which filters content that are only
important to users and thereby eliminates consumers’
navigation on the sea of link piles. It runs with any
Internet-enabled handset.
It is
currently available in 18 countries and territories
worldwide such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada,
France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Italy,
Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, Thailand,
United Kingdom and United States.
The
Spanish and Portuguese versions localized for Argentina,
Brazil and Mexico were recently developed.
In the
case of the
Philippines,
David Ko, Yahoo! General Manager and Vice
President-Connected Life Asia for Mobile and Broadband
said, “Its [oneSearch] availability to be localized in
different languages is done randomly market by market.”
Asked on
how Yahoo! assesses users’ response since it launched
oneSearch this year, Steve Boom, Senior Vice President
for Broadband and Mobile of Yahoo! replied: “Fabulous!
Internet usage is becoming more important to people.
Mobile Internet is not a replacement to web and users
have different needs and usage cases. The balance may
shift but consumption increases.”
“Getting
audience for web services is different from mobile
phones. We can’t provide all the Internet information
the users need, but our key is to . . . hit the billion
mobile users,” explained Ojas Rege, Yahoo! vice
president for global mobile products.
Rege
said the Sunnyvale, California-headquartered firm is
pursuing its agenda of working with partners and
connecting with large-scale audience on a global basis
via mobile services.
Across
Asia Pacific, Rege said the company has inked deals with
nine mobile operators. The partnership, Rege explained,
would extend these firms’ reach and additional revenue
opportunities. These firms include Aircel Ltd., BPL
Mobile, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. of India; DiGi
Telecommunications Sdn Bhd of Malaysia; PT Excelcomindo
Pratama Tbk, PT Hutchison CP Telecom, PT Indosat Tbk, of
Indonesia; PCCW Mobile HK Ltd. of Hong Kong; and,
Starhub Ltd. of Singapore.
Yahoo!
executives said they are also riding on the growth of
mobile advertising by making this available to 19
countries via their service. These advertisements will
appear on top of search results on the handset’s screen.
“Our
clients on web advertising are also showing interests on
mobile advertisement. We are working on its
availability, usage and space not to affect our
principles to focus on customers, product innovations
and partnerships,” Ko said.
He
admits accessing the Internet via the mobile phone
remains slower compared to using a desktop computer or
laptop.
“Mobile
Internet will be soon faster and easier. It’s like using
dial-up [connection to the Internet] before: slow but
continuously moving. Technology made [things] faster,
like broadband.”
Ko also
believes the technology pace would encompass the IT and
telecommunications industry, along with infrastructure
and pricing.
Hence,
he said the company is working to create “products and
services and form strategic partnerships to break those
barriers.” |
