One of the largest corporations, dealing with web content, Yahoo, has announced recently about its new web service, targeted for mobile phone users. This service will make possible to send short text messages quires (SMS) and receive the required information with the help of a mobile phone.
In fact, this is another Yahoo step in the struggle for the domination in the World Wide Web. At the moment, Yahoo has many rivals in its market share; the most serious among them are Google and MSN. These companies work hard to earn the web users' affection and loyalty. Thus, they periodically announce new services and improvements to the existing web projects. The web search and free web mail are no longer a sufficient mean to stay on the top among the web service providers. Hence, Yahoo develops and launches new and new services for the Internet surfers.
The new web project from Yahoo, called SMS Search, is designed to let people get specific information, such as weather forecasts, stock quotes and business addresses, using the mobile phone itself. Moreover, the new solution allows to create shortcuts on the keypad of the phone to make the service faster and more convenient for the users. For instance, a user may type in "w" and receive a search results with weather forecast on the mobile phone.
If the information is not included in the first set of the results, the users can request and receive an additional input. Consumers can also save the responses to use them later in order to get updates of the same information, such as stock quotes for a particular company.
Presenting SMS Search is another option to extend the browser-based mobile search functionality of the Yahoo on line services. Nowadays, the company's aim is to offer the services, earlier available only for PC users, to mobile phone users as well. Yahoo broads the line of mobile devices, supported by web search service. The main problem with the internet content for mobile phones is the small size of the display; accordingly, only handheld PC based communicators and smart-phones could access the Yahoo search online. Currently, any Wireless Application Protocol-enabled phone (with WAP support), which includes most mobile phones with a color screen, can perform Web searches. Yahoo is using a transcoding method to transform Web pages into a format that a small-screen device can display.
Yahoo has also expanded the type of data that people can send from a computer-based Web search to a mobile phone. The list of supported information now includes products, prices and other shopping-related results. Yahoo, previously, allowed people to send localized information on gas stations and stores, as well as driving directions from the Web maps, in form of text messages to phones.
Yahoo has partnerships with Cingular Wireless, Sprint and Verizon for the SMS-based search services and with Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile for the browser-based Web search services.
Yahoo offers its SMS Search service free of charge for any users, however, there may be some fees from the mobile connection provider.