US: Yahoo upgrades engine to challenge Google, MS

Yahoo! Inc. adds links to songs, videos, and photos in order to compete with Google

The Korea Herald
Thursday, October 4, 2007

Yahoo! Inc., seeking to crack Google Inc.'s dominance in the market for internet queries, upgraded its search engine to include links to songs, videos and photos.

Searches will incorporate Yahoo's music service, its Flickr photo-sharing site, and movie showtimes, locations and previews for the first time, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said today in a statement.

The changes follow an upgrade of Microsoft Corp.'s search engine last week as Google's rivals compete for internet users and advertising dollars. Yahoo is unveiling its new site after a management shakeup and the introduction of advertising software designed to make internet-search ads more relevant.

"We're going to keep doing launches like these to better package the information for users," Tim Mayer, a Yahoo vice president, said in an interview. "We want to reverse the trend and start gaining. This is hopefully a good step in starting to be more aggressive."

Google's share of the internet search market increased to 56.5 percent in August from 55.2 percent the previous month, according to Reston, Virginia-based research firm ComScore Inc. Yahoo's share fell to 23.3 percent, while Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft's dropped to 11.3 percent.

Yahoo's improvements mark the biggest change to its search engine since 2004, said Vish Makhijani, senior vice president. In addition to having more content, the service is designed to help users with their queries by giving more clickable options. For example, a search for "Dylan" produces a menu that includes singer Bob Dylan, poet Dylan Thomas and actor Dylan McDermott.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, bolstered its site last week by adding shopping, health, mapping and entertainment features. Google, located in Mountain View, California, introduced Universal Search in May, a service that links to images, book excerpts, news and YouTube videos.

Yahoo is counting on new products to help regain momentum after second-quarter profit fell and sales growth slowed. Co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as chief executive officer in June and head of sales Gregory Coleman announced his planned departure in August.

Yahoo shares fell 9 cents to $26.95 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They have climbed 5.5 percent this year, compared with Google's 27 percent gain. (Bloomberg)

Date Posted: 10/4/2007