At Yahoo! Search, we pay attention to what’s popular on the Web and what matters most to you. We know that celebrities rank near the top of the buzziest searches on Yahoo!, so this is one area in search that we’ve been working on to make even better. As we’ve already started to do with news, local, sports, music and movies searches, we want to make your pop culture search results more useful.  Now you can find photos, videos, news and other interesting information right on top of our Search results page, without digging through all 10 blue links.

Our brilliant scientists are working hard behind the scenes to uncover the relevant details and content hidden in the billions of pages on the Web. What this means is that we can surface the nuggets scattered across what we call the “Web of Things” to show you the stuff that matters to you, right on your Search results page. Our aim is to save you many clicks and a lot of time, while creating a fun way to conduct searches for related topics of interest.

For entertainment junkies, there is all kinds of great information we can find for you in our rich Search results. For example, if you’re a TV fan looking for details on your favorite show we just launched a new TV shortcut that will display the latest video clips, bonus videos (or even entire episodes), episodes list, ratings, show times from Yahoo! TV, and photos – all with just one click from the Search results page.

On the left side of the page, we show suggestions of related celebrities, movies or TV shows related to your entertainment queries. Check out the search results for “Days of our Lives” actor Jensen Ackles. If you click on Ackles’ result, we’ll show you a brand new rich shortcut with photos, videos and tweets about him. Plus you’ll get new suggestions to explore more Search results for his co-stars, like Jessica Alba and Orlando Bloom, or some of the movies he’s been in.

Click on Orlando Bloom and you’ll see that the new Celebrity shortcut brings up news, along with his photos, videos and tweets.

So go on and search for your favorite entertainment topics on Yahoo! We are curious to know what you think!

P.S. If your favorite celebrity has an official Twitter feed, you can see their tweets right on the search results page! This way, you won’t miss a minute of their lives.

P.P.S. We’re also now showing enhanced shortcuts for a broader range of movies and music to include even more of your favorite stuff. Take a look at our search results for music artist Tommy Emmanuel or the movie Pretty Woman.

Alexandra Levich and Yuko Kamae

Yahoo! Search

The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms.  Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process, which we expect to complete over the next few days.

To share your thoughts on this latest update, please visit the Site Explorer Suggestion Board.

Dan Rampton
Program Manager, Yahoo! Search

Last week, we introduced you to some great search features to keep up with the 82^nd Academy Awards. The coveted statuettes have been distributed and the post-show analysis is in full swing!

The buzziest acceptance speeches of the evening:  Sandra Bullock and  Mo’Nique – although the story behind Elinor Burkett and her so-called “hijacked” acceptance speech blazed a path through search logs on Monday.

Best Motion Picture contender that is the most anticipated DVD in search: The Blind Side, followed by Avatar, Precious, and The Hurt Locker.

The buzz, of course, is never simply about who won.  One of our favorite ways to explore major events is to check out the questions they inspired in search.  One standout: “Are the Oscars the same as the Academy Awards?”  (Why, yes!)

A sampling of notable Oscar 2010 search questions:

• Who won Best Actress? – the biggest award category in search questions
• Has Meryl Streep ever won an Oscar?
• What does Hurt Locker mean? – a big theme in search, coupled with “What is The Hurt Locker about?”
• How tall is Kathryn Bigelow?
• Are Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal related?
• Who votes for the Oscars?

Check out The Buzz Log for more Oscar search trends and buzzing topics, courtesy of our friends at Yahoo! Buzz.

Andrea Sandke

Yahoo! Search

We had a great time at the SMX West conference this past week in Santa Clara, CA. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked things off with his keynote speech, where he addressed several questions on the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance. Yahoo! participated in several different panels throughout the week, including Thursday’s keynote “The State off the Search Union” roundtable featuring David Roth, Director of Search Engine Marketing. (You can check out the full recap of this at Search Engine Land’s live-blog post.)

One of the hot topics discussed was real-time search, and I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel about that subject, titled “Real Time Search & the Major Search Engines.” Among other things, we discussed the real-time features we’ve rolled out for Yahoo! Search, like tweets in Yahoo! search results and getting the freshest information on developing news as well as some of the challenges and opportunities in this space.

In our down time I visited Yahoo!’s popular booth on the show floor – everyone loved our free coffee! Check out some of the highlights in the video below.

Ivan Davtchev

Yahoo! Search

Continuing our celebration of the Academy Awards, we are rolling out a series of features that make it easier for you to follow coverage of the Oscars on Yahoo! Search.

On Yahoo! Image Search, just search for “Oscars 2010” and you’ll see our Oscars image carousel, with the latest image search results of the nominees and photos of the event. While counting down to the big night, you can easily search for snapshots from the film Inglourious Basterds or photos of nominees like Meryl Streep. You’ll see Oscars-related image results for these films and actors in the Oscars image refiner on the left hand side of the page. On Oscar night, use Yahoo! Image Search to see Penelope Cruz’s gown, George Clooney’s always-dapper suit, and other best- and worst-dressed celebs as they make their way down the red carpet.

This year, we are also giving you a quick and easy way to see the list of nominees and winners from the Web search results page. To see the nominees, just search for “Oscars” or “Academy Awards” on Yahoo! Search and you’ll see a list of nomination categories for the awards. Simply click any of the categories to see the full list of nominees.  We’ll be updating the results as soon as the winners are announced on Sunday night, so you can use the same queries and see the list of winners directly on the search results page.

Want more? We have video coverage of the Oscars too! If you didn’t catch the nominated flicks in the theater, check out the trailers of the nominated films on Yahoo! Video Search. Search for “Oscars” on Yahoo! Video Search and you’ll see that we’ve categorized the trailers on the left hand side of the page by award categories, actor interviews, speeches, and more. After the Oscars, search for the names of the winners to find updates results.

With these new ways of exploring the Academy Awards, we hope you enjoy your “front row” access to the Oscars coverage from beginning to end!

Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Image Search, and Yahoo! Video Search Teams

The 2010 SMX West conference kicks off this week in Santa Clara, Calif., and we’re excited to be there! Yahoos will be sitting on a handful of panels, so stop by and learn what we’re up to.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Time: 10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Panel: Real Time Search & The Major Search Engines
Speaker: Ivan Davtchev, Senior Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Time: 1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.
Panel: Search Meets Display, Display Meets Search
Speaker: David Oliveira, Regional Vice President Sales, Yahoo!

Time: 4:45 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Panel: Ask The Paid Search Reps
Speaker: Tomaso Pozzi, Product Manager, Yahoo!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Time: 9 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Panel: Keynote – The State Of The Search Union
Speaker: David Roth, Director of Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo! Inc.

Time: 10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Panel: Bringing SEO In House: How To Be Successful!
Speaker: Laura Lippay, Director of Technical Marketing, Yahoo!

Time: 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Panel: Ask The Search Engines
Speaker: Arnab Bhattacharjee, Senior Director, Yahoo! Search Technology and Engineering, Yahoo!

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Yahoo! Search Team

The little bird is right. Yahoo! is partnering with Twitter, making it possible to integrate real-time content into social experiences on Yahoo! Starting today, you’ll be able to see more fascinating and news-worthy tweets when you search on Yahoo!

Last year we integrated Twitter results in the Yahoo! News Shortcut and for other buzzing topics. With today’s partnership, we have access to the full public feed of Twitter content. We’ve built a real-time index of this feed so you can see what people are tweeting about the topics you’re looking for.

Go on, give it a test flight: Go to Yahoo! and search for “Obama Twitter” or “iPad” to check out how we’re working to help you stay in touch with the people and things you care about most – across the entire Web.

If you are as big a fan of curling as we are, here is an example of what you could see on Yahoo! Search:

Real-time search involves striking a balance between showing the very latest content and showing slightly older content that may be more interesting or authoritative. In the coming weeks, we will be experimenting along these lines and upgrading tons of stuff to provide better, quicker, and more relevant Twitter results on Yahoo! Search result pages.

You can learn more about this partnership in today’s Yodel Anecdotal post by Bryan Lamkin, Yahoo! SVP of Consumer Products Group, to get his take on how Yahoo! and Twitter have just made your Web world smaller, yet larger at the same time.

We want to know what you think! Drop us a tweet with your comments at @yahoosearch.

Ivan Davtchev, Shiv Ramamurthi, Saurabh Pathak

Yahoo! Search

We’ve just added a new search suggestion feature in Web search for Yahoo! Taiwan (Yahoo! Kimo). This feature helps users easily enter queries in traditional Chinese in the search box using the Zhuyin (Bopomofo) system. Zhuyin is a phonetic system widely used in Taiwan.

When Taiwan users type their queries, they often need to switch the language input method from English mode to Chinese mode, taking several clicks before they can enter the query. The new search suggestion feature allows users to enter the phonetic representation of a Chinese query while still in English mode. This saves key strokes and makes it more convenient for our Taiwan users.

For example, to search for “Brad Pitt,” searchers can start typing the Zhuyin spelling of the actor’s name while in English mode and see search suggestion in traditional Chinese.

From the first launch of Yahoo! Search Assist in October, 2007, we have continued to enhance the Search Assist experience. We are also focused on the needs of international markets and features that are useful for non-English users. With new features that make your search more convenient, we hope to give you an even faster and more relevant experience when you use Yahoo! Search.

James Ying, Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

What can search data tell you about people? How can you use search data to project the commercial success of movies, video games, and other products? These are just a few of the challenges from the microeconomics and social systems area of the 2010 Key Scientific Challenges Program that we announced on Jan. 27 this year.

The Key Scientific Challenges program is a competition that encourages top graduate students globally to collaborate with Yahoo! and help invent the future of the Internet. The competition focuses on a variety of scientific issues, from developing algorithms that turn raw information into personally relevant experiences, to discovering insights about online advertising and experimenting with new sociological models for how people engage with the Web.

Go to Yodel Anectotal to read a post by Sharad Goel from Yahoo! Labs, where he shares some thoughts on how Yahoo! is tackling the new opportunities for research into the social sciences that the Web is making possible.

Yahoo! Search

It has been a busy month since Shashi Seth joined Yahoo! as our new Senior Vice President of Yahoo! Search Products. Shashi brings with him a wealth of experience from  Google, eBay, Cooliris, and AOL. As the head of Search, Shashi has emphasized his commitment to Yahoo!’s stake in the search market. In this video, he talks about his first month at Yahoo! and clarifies what he sees as some of the most important aspects of the agreement with Microsoft.

With the Microsoft search alliance, “there is a great opportunity for us to change the game in search by focusing on the consumer experience and bringing things to the front end of search like real time information, shortcuts, vertical intent, query analysis, and suggestions,” Shashi says. “The deal could bring a lot of great things for us especially in focusing on the consumer experience.”

Find out more about Shashi’s first month at Yahoo! in the video above.

Yahoo! Search Team