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July 06, 2005

92466: No Phone Left Behind!

Hey, I'm back to talk about Yahoo! Mobile again � this time we've got some Mobile Search news which is pretty cool.

Though many of us in Yahoo! Mobile are hip to the latest in mobile technologies and walk around with cutting edge mobile phones in our pockets, we're still very aware that the vast majority of cellular customers here in the U.S. still really haven't used many advanced mobile features like, you know, accessing the Internet wirelessly. Can you believe it? Thus we have a couple announcements today geared towards making the Yahoo! Mobile more accessible to more mobile phone customers.

It's not like the U.S. is in a mobile backwater any more. The good thing is thanks to the combined marketing powers of the national carriers and shows like American Idol, most American cellular customers are at least aware of SMS Text Messaging now (which is nice), and pretty much every handset out there supports texting as a basic functionality. So today we're launching SMS Yahoo! Search so that just about anyone with a mobile phone can access Yahoo!

Though it may seem like a step backwards from the rich mobile-web based search that Yahoo! Mobile already has, it's actually just another � and one could argue faster - way to access the same data. What we've done is provide a number of search shortcuts that you can send to 92466 (YAHOO) to receive back a set of SMS Text responses to your query. This is actually very useful just by itself, and pretty much like most SMS search services out there. But we've gone one better by providing URL links in each text message which brings you back to Yahoo Mobile's richer WAP based web pages, with more details than can fit in a text message, links and maps. It does depend on the phone as to how easy this URL is accessed � on newer phones it may be underlined like in any web page, or for Motorola Phones for example, there is a "Go To" option which will find the URL in the message and use it automagically. But the option is there, and it makes SMS Text queries quite useful for the most basic and advanced users alike.

If you think about an SMS message form, it's very similar to a search box found already on Yahoo! Search. You fill out one field with your query, press a button and great results come back. Now you don't have to fumble with bookmarks or wait for the initial Yahoo! Mobile Search form to load, you can send off your search as fast as you can send a friend a quick text message. What's more, is that we've also included functionality to do the same search just by replying to an original response � say if you've done a stock quote search for YHOO earlier in the day, instead of having to retype the query again, just send a blank reply to one of the earlier quotes and Yahoo! will send you an update automatically.

Right now you can search for any local information by sending a query with your location or zip code like: "pizza 94025", you can get a stock quote with: "s yhoo", weather information: "w 94025", dictionary definitions: "d garrulous", horoscopes: "h aquarius", WiFi hotspots: "wifi 94123", and more are coming.

But we're not done yet. We're also aware that most people who do have phones that can access the Internet, don't have full HTML browsers yet, so many pages that come back from general search results have only been accessible to more advanced PDA-like phones like Palm Treos that can display full-on web pages. We've now finally fixed that hole in our mobile offerings by providing a transcoding process on the search results for all WAP2 enabled phones. In other words, once you've done a search and click on one of the resulting links, if you're using a phone with a WAP2 browser, we'll translate the web page for you so it's accessible on your handset. But we leave some of the images in and not cut the page up too badly - in other words, it be both accessible and usable at the same time. We are also using shortcuts in this service, something that sets us apart from the competition.

Pretty cool hey? Please put your questions and comments below - though I'll try to head off some of the first ones: this service is just for the U.S. right now, sorry to you international users.

Russell Beattie
Mobile Yahoo!

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Comments

I tired this using T-Mobile phone and got back a text message saying "Invalid Yahoo command." Any ideas?

Posted by: Scott-O-Rama | July 6, 2005 09:22 PM

Same problem for me. T-mobile at 745 am thurs. I did coffee 208XX.

Tried again with W 208XX and also got invalid command. Yahoo commands are: sign in.... etc.

Posted by: eric | July 7, 2005 03:46 AM

I get the same errors. It thinks I want to sign into messenger. This is the same shortcode for doing that after all.

Posted by: Matt | July 7, 2005 07:08 AM

we should have been clearer in the blog post -- we launched with Sprint, Cingular and Verizon. more carriers to come.

Posted by: nancy | July 7, 2005 07:13 AM

So if I use the service on a Palm Treo, will it still attempt to chop the page up for the WAP2 enabled phones, or is it smart enough to know that I am using a Treo and can view the normal webpage?

Posted by: Preston Wily | July 7, 2005 08:16 AM

Wow, Yahoo! SMS. Acts like Google SMS.

Posted by: Jack | July 7, 2005 08:19 AM

I read the blurb in today's San Jose Mercury News and it clearly stated Sprint, Cingular and Verizon. I hope it comes to T-Mobile soon (my carrier) so that I can give it a try.

Posted by: Mookie Kong | July 7, 2005 09:11 AM

Hey all,

To clarify:

SMS Search is available on: Cingular, Sprint, and Verizon

Web Search with transcoding available on: Cingular, Sprint, and T-mobile

Sorry I wasn't more specific about this in my post, I actually wasn't sure of the details myself until today.

As for the Treo question: Yes. We don't give the user a transcoding option if we detect they
are arriving from a phone with a real HTML browser.

Hope that helps!

-Russ

Posted by: Russell Beattie | July 7, 2005 01:55 PM

Gee I don't know ... Google SMS seemed such an old idea even 9 months ago. So why this and when will Yahoo be giving us voice driven search?

Posted by: Eric | July 8, 2005 11:17 AM

I just got around to trying this feature on my cingular phone and what can I say, I love it! just by typing down the shortcuts such as "w 19140" I was able to get the weather with the click of a button. I really love it and look forward for all the features to come out.

-David

Posted by: David | July 9, 2005 11:48 AM

I tired this using T-Mobile phone and got back a text message saying "Invalid Yahoo command." Any ideas?

Posted by: Mark | August 5, 2005 04:46 AM

Open Source Project for Google SMS & Yahoo! SMS Search

The usage of SMS search mandates the need for consumers to memorize separate lists of abstract SMS short codes and numbers. This unfortunately reduces usability and discourages casual use by the general public.

An open source solution has been developed and released to address the usability issue and remove the need for the casual user to memorize separate list of SMS codes and numbers. The solution uses a widely deployed SAT (SIM Application Toolkit)
application to present the SMS search engine in the form of verbose and descriptive user-friendly menus.

With USAT Front-end for Mobile Applications by Tea Vui Huang, the user is presented with options of items/categories to search for, and prompted with instructions for enquiry information as and when required. The collated information is then
duly arranged within the mobile handset by the front-end, prefixed with the required short codes and formatted with the appropriate text spacing. The search request is then sent to the respective SMS number without any involvement of the user.

Key features of USAT Front-end for Mobile Applications include:
- Open Source Initiative (OSI) Certified Open Source Software distributed under MIT License
- Users do not need to memorize lists of SMS short codes and numbers
- Users do not need to remember SMS input format / spacing requirements
- Users are prompted with full textual description of entry items that needs to be keyed in
- Support for low-end cell phones / mobile phones
- No major changes required to the system and servers of Telco / Cellco / Search Engine providers


USAT Front-end for Mobile Applications
http://sourceforge.net/projects/usatfrontend

Screenshots / Photos
http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=145904

Posted by: Anonymous | August 20, 2005 06:02 PM

Very,very frustrating trying to retrieve my password. I entered the password i always used and you kept rejecting it over and over. What is the problem?

Posted by: Clement Dwyer | February 20, 2006 11:45 AM

sir i want to know how to get the mobile number of a friend in my contact list ??? please i am really in need of this i m love with someone but she got angry on my 1 mistake n not going to answer me i dont have her mobile no please please tell me how to please :(

Posted by: ALi | March 1, 2006 09:59 AM

Helo,

One of my friend loged to Yahoo messenger from mobile. his status is appearing as " I'am on SMS".

have any chance to find his mobile number..?i need urgently to contact with him.
plzz help me...for solution to..

nambetim@yahoo.co.in

Posted by: Peter | May 1, 2006 03:51 AM

Amazing service, but... how do you do it? I have tried sending url links via SMS but the resulting message doesn't show it as a link, just as raw text. When I tried to send as HTML email, it made it worse by having the link info disappear completely, leaving only the anchor text.

Any ideas on how I can send anchored links to SMS or even MMS and have then show up correctly?

Thanks,
Jason

Posted by: Jason Fisher | May 1, 2006 12:50 PM

Can i use it with metro pcs service. I tried it before but i got a failure message. Am i doing something wrong?
thanks,
Tamisha

Posted by: tamisha crouch | July 14, 2006 05:39 PM

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I found a similar, but better (more services), search service. 2-7627 (2SNAP - which is how I remember it). Their website (www.upsnap.com) says that the service works on all carriers.

Posted by: Daniele | July 21, 2006 07:02 AM

i have already reg. with yahoo.
i normaly use net on my ph.in my Y!GO application every feature working properly,only y!msg not connecting shows"not connected try again or cheak APN setting".why it is not connecting.

Posted by: kshitij | January 14, 2007 10:48 PM