Yahoo is developing a new technologies and new ways to squeeze revenue from them. The internet company based in Sunnyvale, California plans to start rolling out soon its new search-advertising ranking technology, a move that Search Giant hopes will help it close the “monetization” gap with rival Google.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Yahoo’s Chief Executive Terry Semel said the company is harnessing “social media,” or tools for engaging consumers, so that they contribute content to Yahoo sites. The move aims surfers to spend more time with which Search engine hopes to turn in advertising dollars.
Yahoo sees so called “Social Media project” as a way to distinguish its search service and gain additional market share. The Search Engine intends to launch an initiatives where users would ask and answer each others’ questions. The company said it will also add photo-sharing service which is intented to improve the quality of its search engine.
By introducing a human knowledge and content, Yahoo hopes it could better serve a subjective search queries on.
Let’s say someone needs to find the top rated pizza places in New York or learn more about shared web hosts that consumers define as the most reliable ones. Users who search the web can now find only websites ranked by algorithm on different criteria that have a nothing to do with the consumer experience. Websites are ranked by number of important links, sites and etc which lead to their pages. This method does not take the experience real people have with the place, service or product.
“Aks and Answer” search results have been brought first in Taiwan where Yahoo succeeded to take market share from its rivals. Yahoo’s market share in this country reached 65%, compared to 30% for April 2006.
Yahoo executives announced the company is focused on developing platforms in areas such as media, communication, advertising and data, which provide foundations for innovation and development. The Search Engine claims it’s “going beyond the browser” with an aggressive push into the mobile space. Mobile devices outnumber personal computers by 2-to-1 and Yahoo have seen growing potential in delivering content to cellphones.
The company says it will begin by introducing a new algorithm for its search-advertising ranking technology in the U.S. which will tackle international markets in the first quarter of 2006. The technology will change how Yahoo sets the position of its search-based “cost per click” text ads. The algorithm will use a quality score that incorporates a number of measures, including bid price.