Yahoo's Deals Put New Spin On Mobile Search Monetization
While Google purposely pursues a much wider agenda that goes to the heart of mobile advertising, (in all the excitement many missed the news that Google has launched coupons linked to Google Maps - a move that dovetails well with location-based mobile advertising somewhere down the road), its efforts are scattered in comparison to those of rival Yahoo In fact, a closer examination of Yahoo’s recent raft of mobile services and search deals, shows Yahoo is not only more focussed than Google, but potentially much better positioned.
Unlike Google, Yahoo has soothed operator fears that branded search must result in brand dilution and a raw deal. Indeed, Yahoo has become expert at selling itself as the missing link in operator’s emerging fixed-mobile content access and search strategies. It is also an indispensable part of their search monetization schemes.
This was the message that came through loud and clear in a discussion I had with Mark Joseph, Head of Content at 3. The UK operator recently sealed a world-first global agreement to provide Yahoo services and search. The milestone move sees Yahoo taking the top-notch position as the default Internet search engine on 3 handsets and on Planet 3, the operator’s mobile portal. According to Joseph, the tie-up with Yahoo is core to 3’s strategy to “bring trusted Internet brands to our network in a way that enhances [users’] overall customer experience”. Search monetization is also high on 3’s agenda - especially since Yahoo will abide by 3’s business rules to also deliver a mix of on-portal content offers promoting 3’s own content partners and the wider Web in search results (which Yahoo will also transcode for delivery to mobile devices). Geraldine Wilson, Yahoo’s VP of Connected Life at Yahoo Europe, tells me the plan is to present “3 content followed by paid-for placements, sponsored links and then the Wider Web”.