“Yahoo Inc.’s search chief said Friday he is focused on expanding market share, an assurance that comes despite an uncertain future for the Internet giant thanks to the recent ouster of its CEO and interest from potential acquirers,” John Letzing reports for MarketWatch.
“Shashi Seth, Yahoo’s senior vice president of search products, said during a conference call hosted by a Wall Street analyst that he is trying to keep his team focused, despite the recent uncertainty and related media scrutiny,” Letzing reports. “In particular, Seth said Yahoo sees mobile phone searches, and device maker Apple Inc. as key to expanding Yahoo’s presence.”
Letzing reports, “Seth estimated that 32% of all mobile Internet searches originate on devices running Apple’s iOS software, which powers the popular iPhone and iPad. While Google Inc. currently provides a default search engine for Apple devices, Seth suggested Apple and others may one day prefer to work with Yahoo. That is because Google has developed into a competitor to Apple in mobile software and hardware, Seth said… Yahoo will actively seek to muscle in on Google’s arrangement with Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
Yes, exactly, Apple will willingly pair itself with a loser. Sorry to tell you Seth, your team’s playing in the minor leagues. Apple doesn’t play there. Only Microsoft prefers little leaguers like Yahoo!, Skype, Nokia and half dead tech.
Apple’s choices for default mobile search:
1) Stay with Google, those traitors.
2) Go with Microsoft, their arch rival since forever.
3) Go with Yahoo. Maybe the traffic will improve their situation.
I suppose anything is possible.
I don’t know what Apple will do with its search. I’m sure they would like an alternative to their rival, but that’s probably true with their device sceens as well. But Apple proves time and again that they will choose quality over rivalry every time. I’ll bet it is more distasteful for companies that compete with Apple to see their components function to help Apple’s devices dominate.
Last year, I have proactively changed the default search engine on all my iOS devices from Google to Yahoo (Google ticked me off one too many times). On the mobile front, the difference in quality, if there’s any, hasn’t been significant enough for me to discern.
I like Yahoo, appreciate Mr. Yang for some of his principles (i.e. his adamant stance on no Ads on Yahoo’s main or customised portal page). I think, too late as it is maybe, this is the best/only move for Yahoo to join forces with the winning Apple team, and I wish them success. Culturally, they have some history together. Jerry Yang tried to reach out to Mr. Jobs for help (was holding out) when MS was trying to buy Yahoo. He also had Mr. Jobs give a pep talk to 300 Yahoo VPs in 2007 about sometimes it’s ok for the chips to be down.
Yahoo’s a stark contrast to Google (i.e. not a rip-off, privacy invading, creepy culture), and it’s a good company founded by fellow Gen-Xers. teh interweb and Yahoo came of age together during the budding 90s. Before, it became a “portal” so many of us used to visit Yahoo from campuses just for the updated cool Links.
I’m not sure if Apple can find a spot for Yahoo in it’s current DNA, but it would have been cool if they could pick it up, dust it off, and pit against Google’s main bread and butter just for the heck of it.
I wish Yahoo well.
MDN, what happened to your website? There is now a small story wedged between 2 giant borders with ads. I know you need to make a living, but the new look is fugly.
I, too, find the glut of advertising on the MDN website fairly disgusting. But to be fair, the left column also includes a list of current Mac-related articles on a number of other websites.
Speaking of advertising in general, it’s shocking to see the extent to which advertising is forcing itself into virtually every corner of everyday life. You’d think that the whole purpose of being alive was to buy stuff! Very disturbing.
You got that right, I thought it had something to do with 10.7 full screen
I just keep my window a reasonable width; all the adverts on the right are hidden.
Did not Yahoo dropped their own search engine efforts and uses Microsoft’s technology?
And what took Yahoo so long to figure this out? The should have ran with this years ago.
Maybe the ex-CEO entertained different ideas.
There’s nothing sacred about Google search, imho. The only reason that Google has remained the search leader after years of virtual sameness, is that nobody else has come up with something better. But that day is bound to come. Even Bing (gasp!) is better than Google for some types of searches. It’s not totally out of the question that Google will be the “Netscape” of search engines ten years from now. Instead of focusing on improving their search function, Google is trying to get into a dozen other businesses. They may succeed in this endeavor, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I like Yahoo much better than Google. Yahoo does need a jumpstart. A partnership with Apple would be nice.
I switched to Yahoo a few months ago and it’s been fine. I probably give them several hundred queries a month (give or take). Google is not all that great anymore, not like it used to be.
Plus, of all search engines, Yahoo! has the best privacy policy of all of them (even Bing). Yahoo mandates that all IP addresses be stripped from search logs after 3 months.
Bing = 6 months, Google = 9 months
Tough choice for Apple?
Google – Backstabbing, Lying, Stealing, Copy Cats, Basterds
MS – Backstabbing, Lying, Stealing, Copy Cats, Basterds
Yahoo – hmmmmm