Sunnyvale, Calif. — Yahoo has scored another wireless conquest for its mobile Internet search tool. Yahoo and T-Mobile jointly announced Thursday that Yahoo’s “oneSearch” mobile search tool will be the default mobile engine to power Internet search made through T-Mobile’s new “Web2go” service, bringing the number of wireless providers using oneSearch to more than 70.
T-Mobile said Yahoo’s oneSearch will supply web2go users with a better Web -browsing experience “by offering easier to view and navigate the Web through a customizable home page,” as well a simplified shopping and download experience. Unlike on a PC, T-Mobile web2go users would not need to drill down to find data.
With a carrier partnership, the search engine can carve a position for itself in the constantly developing mobile data market and the advertising opportunities it represents. Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft are aggressively courting Verizon.
“I think it is a significant move for Yahoo to have these relationships. comScore found in September that 21 percent of mobile search users in the U.S. were using the carrier’s default search engine, and that is a big amount of people,” Greg Sterling, principal analyst for Sterling Market Intelligence, said in a statement. However, his own research has found a slightly lower percentage, he noted.
oneSearch allows users to search for an assortment of information on the Web. It also allows users to find content on the T-Mobile store, including ring-tones, wallpaper and games.
Moreover, oneSearch is a solid search option for T-Mobile for the simplest reason that it more instinctively delivers results that are more likely to reflect the types of things mobile users might be searching for via their phones.
Since a mobile user’s screen space is very compact, the Yahoo tool has been designed to provide results grouped around a given search term. For instance, a search for a movie title returns theaters with show times, reviews, information on the actors, and related articles. Or a search on a sports team returns relevant scores, schedules, and profiles for teams, news, and a link to the team’s Web site.
“It is simpler for people to maneuver around on a PC desktop than on a mobile phone, so there is more stickiness and inertia around using a default carrier search, so I do think it is significant — and that is why the stakes are high for Google and Microsoft for a similar position with Verizon, which they have apparently been negotiating over,” he explained.
“There is market share and money at stake because all of these guys want to get their ads exposed to the carriers’ audiences,” he added.
“Mobile search collects data, and from T-Mobile’s point of view, data is core factor to their future in the sense of data revenues, and compared to the other big players, T-Mobile is behind in data revenue,” William Ho, research director of wireless services for Current Analysis, said in a statement.
“As T-Mobile develops their 3G network, it is important for them to collect data as well to get a return on their investment,” he added.
On the whole, what appears to be just another search engine installed on the mobile phones offered up by a carrier is actually far more important to both players than what meets the eye.