Yahoo Upgrades Mobile Offering

With mobile marketing expecting huge gains in 2007, Yahoo is betting on improvements to their mobile platform to help boost revenue. The online search giant is upgrading with oneSearch software, designed to give users faster results from more specific search query answers.

by Kristina Knight

The software is part of Yahoo’s revamped Go for Mobile service which includes directory information, email and photo sharing.

According to Ojas Rege, Yahoo’s senior director of global mobile products, the company is working hard to provide existing advertisers with mobile marketing information. "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 (via MediaPost).

oneSearch offers sponsored listings at the top and bottom of the mobile screen and will begin offering display ads later in Q1. The system remembers previous queries and fills in the information for subsequent searches. It is offered in the newest versions of Motorola, Nokia and Samsung Electronics and Research in Motion.

Yahoo isn’t the only provider to upgrade mobile search offerings for 2007. 4Info has upgraded to include text ads and one-click search results. And on Monday Medio Systems announced a new search partnership with T-Mobile; they made a similar deal with Verizon last year. Not to be left out, Google has inked a deal with Samsung to include Google Maps, Gmail and search applications on certain of the handsets.

According to JupiterResearch, mobile advertising will jump from $1.4 billion in 2006 to $2.9 billion in 2011.