At Yahoo!, we’re focused on creating deeply personal digital experiences and there’s no doubt that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, priorities for us is to bring those products and ideas to the mobile user, whether they’re using feature phones, smartphones or tablets.

We’ve got some amazing mobile experiences, from News, Sports and Finance, to Mail, Messenger and entirely new products like IntoNow and Livestand. Our commitment is to deliver these products in ways that help all of our users (and advertisers) enjoy engaging and seamless experiences across all the devices they use.

Our plan is to keep moving, to keep innovating, and to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t – so we can make room for great new products. In that spirit, today we’re decommissioning several of our current mobile apps. We will be sending a notification later today that thefollowing apps will no longer be supported:

We’re moving forward with a “mobile first” mindset. You can expect to see more new Yahoo! mobile products in 2012, especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!’s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr, which are already being used by millions of people around the world. And we’ll be building these experiences with disruptive technology that’s going to change the mobile game well beyond Yahoo!.

For apps such as AppSpot and Sketch-a-Search, we decided to integrate the key features you know and love into the Yahoo! Search app. For example, we recently announced the app search feature in the Yahoo! Search app for iPhone. Stay tuned for moreupdates to the mobile search apps for both iPhone and Android.

With more than 700 million users around the world, we’ve got a huge and growing audience. We’re going to bring them the Yahoo! they love on every device in their life.

Stay tuned for a lot of action from Yahoo this year. 2012 has just begun and we’re just getting started.

– Yahoo! Mobile Team

Let’s take a stroll through what’s new within the app:

Local Tabs: Use the top navigation box to quickly find nearby bars, restaurants, ATMs and more with one simple click.

Trending Topics: View the most current and popular searches by topic on the home page, with direct access to news, images and tweets.

Voice Search: Skip the typing. Just talk and we’ll do all the work to help make the search easier and faster.

Search and download iPhone apps: Search and find more iPhone apps that fit your lifestyle, with direct links to the App Store for quick and easy download right on the device.

Sophisticated New Look: Rich, high-quality information for many search terms in a variety of categories including sports, news, entertainment and finance.

Give it a tap to start your new and improved Yahoo! Search experience today and let us know what you think!

– Justine Shen, with the Yahoo! Search mobile team: Anand Chandrasekaran, Eric Hennings and Erik Jessen

The last time I needed a cab ride to the airport, I knew I was in for multiple calls to at least three or four taxi companies before I could find one available within 15 minutes.  So, I dove into the app store and its hundreds of thousands of apps to see what I could find.

I’d heard about UberCab, so I started there.  I downloaded the app, but after going through sign-up and registration, I wasn’t sure how I’d be charged for the ride.  I then searched some more and downloaded Taxi Magic and Cabulous. The Taxi Magic app scouted local cab companies for an available taxi, allowing me to pay the driver directly, so I booked and finished my search without trying the Cabulous app.

Apps are great in this way, but I did wish there was a better method to discover new apps, and find that one app I liked and could depend on.

The ratings and reviews in app stores help, but with 425,000-plus apps in the Apple App Store and 200,000 apps in Android Market, discovering new apps you like isn’t easy.   And what’s more challenging – if you don’t know the specific name of the app you want, finding the right app out of the tens of thousands of possibilities requires multiple searches, downloads, and general uncertainty about the quality of the app you download.

Mobile users rely on apps to continuously be informed and entertained, yet discovering new apps on a daily basis is still much more difficult and less intuitive than searching for Web content on the PC.

At Yahoo! Search, we think there is a better way – both for discovering personally relevant apps on a daily basis and finding the utility apps that help get the job done – regardless of the type of device or platform.

Today, we are introducing two fun, fast ways to search and discover mobile apps: Yahoo! App Search on the PC, and AppSpot, a new mobile application. Together, they take the guesswork out of finding relevant and interesting apps for users.

First, Yahoo! AppSpot, a mobile search app for iPhone, iPod touch and Android users, is packed with unique features:

• Daily Personal Picks:  Unlike ‘Top Apps’ lists that provide the same apps day after day, you’ll get new, personalized app suggestions on a daily basis, so you’re always introduced to the latest, most interesting, and relevant apps.

• More Precise Results: Using Yahoo!’s sophisticated search technology, quickly zero-in on an app by showing matching app titles as well as related keywords as you type.

• Related Apps: Discover similar apps within the “more apps you’ll love” section to find related apps that best match your needs.

• At-a-Glance Shopping: Review the price, overall star ratings, screenshots, and description all on one screen to avoid the endless scrolling.

• Fast & Easy Downloads: Direct links to the specific app pages within the Apple App Store or Android Marketplace make downloading an app a snap.

Second, we are rolling out Yahoo! App Search to provide the best of both the PC and mobile worlds –you get the convenience and speed to shop on your PC and the ability to easily download apps on your mobile device.

Yahoo! Search is continuing our mission to take search beyond just links to provide you with direct answers and great content discovery experiences – whenever and wherever you want.

Start discovering new apps today! AppSpot is available now for download on AppSpot for iPhone and iPod touch and AppSpot for Android. Or give it a spin on your PC at http://apps.search.yahoo.com

Anil Panguluri, Yahoo! Product Director of Mobile Search

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Yahoo! AppSpot for iPhone and iPod touch
Yahoo! AppSpot for Android

Anil Panguluri, Director of Mobile Search at Yahoo!, offered recent research findings that showed that smartphone users are engaging with apps in equal amounts to the Internet browser on their mobiles, but the reach of browser-based search is 61% versus only 26% for apps. (The reach of search on PCs is 76%, so already mobile is closing in.) “Given a choice, users prefer to use apps,” he stated. “I believe that users use their browser for general searches, and apps for vertical searches.”

Photo: Yahoo!’s Anil Panguluri during the panel.

“Finding information that meets a specific need” was, not surprisingly, the top motivation for people using search on mobiles, but the research showed that users who use apps for search are more advanced, finding what they need more quickly and with fewer clicks. “Apps offer a search experience beyond the ten blue links,” Panguluri said. “Going forward, general mobile search will go deeper into the user flow” to enhance the experience.

Panguluri added that app users are not hostile to advertising in their apps, but that 88% of those surveyed pegged their #1 priority in this regard is that the ads do not make them leave the app, while 59% said that they want “free stuff” to be offered in conjunction with the ad. “Mobile ads are actually more impactful than online display ads,” Panguluri claimed. “Our research showed that Ad Awareness measured 22% higher for mobile ads than for our control group.” He also explained for Yahoo!’s mobile audience, which currently numbers 41 million people, rich, well produced ad experiences work extremely well, especially videos.

How to manage search marketing on various platforms

Another panel discussion focused on the devices people use to search and what it says about them—and their receptivity to your marketing messages. Taylor Schreiner, Senior Director of Strategic Research and Insights at Yahoo!, described a study we conducted with RepriseMedia, which showed that 21.4% of smartphone users do searches on it. “This is a huge and increasing piece of search in the future,” he said. “You have to realize that search is a mobile phenomenon.”

Schreiner stated that iPad users do more searches (by percentage of share) for movie and TV info than desktop users, as well as for real estate and investment searches. The latter stat, especially, reveals the Demography aspect of mobile search—higher income people can afford tablets, and are more likely to invest.

While brand searches are still driven by PCs, “I expect that here too, tablets’ search share will grow to equal PCs,” Schreiner opined. He said that this difference is related to search term length: PC and tablet users tend to use longer queries, while mobile users type in much shorter searches.

Full Day 2 coverage by Jeff Hecox can be found in this post on the Yahoo! Advertising blog.

After his panel, Taylor Schreiner spoke in the video below around the discussion highlights.

At Yahoo! Search, we’ve learned from user behavior on mobile search and taken a new approach to understanding what you need when you’re on-the-go.  For our mobile search experience (m.yahoo.com), this means pulling more essential information from the web, and employing the latest HTML5 technology to help you easily browse the content you’re interested in.

Late last week, we rolled out an updated mobile search experience for smartphones. We’ve honed search results for local business listings, stock information, entertainment topics, videos, and images. You’ll see that results for these topics are neatly packaged so you can find exactly what you need when you’re out and about.

Try searching for a stock quote (such as “PFE”) and you’ll see charts, news, and detailed data about the company.

Or get your celebrity fix by searching for “Robert Pattison” or “Dancing With The Stars” – you’ll find photos, news, videos, and tweets about the celebrity in convenient tabs. Or try searching for your favorite local restaurant or business by name, like “Starbucks” or “McDonald’s” to see an improved local mobile search experience.

U.S. users of most iPhones and some newer versions of Android 2.x phones are automatically being taken to this new product when you search from http://m.yahoo.com. If you are an Android user, you can also search from the Yahoo! Search for Android widget (download it from the Android market on your phone). It is now available in 13 countries, and you can speak your query in English, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia.

We will be enhancing other types of searches and plan to roll out the new Yahoo! mobile experience on more devices and international markets in the coming months. We’re also working on improving Yahoo! mobile apps and building new apps, so stay tuned.

For now, we hope iPhone and Android users like our new mobile search. Please post your feedback in the comments section — we’ll be reading.

Anil Panguluri
Product Director, Yahoo! Mobile Search & Discovery

Yahoo! Search will be the exclusive search service for TIM Busca, providing an easier and faster mobile search experience. Check out the Yahoo! Mobile Blog for more information about this partnership.

Melissa Beltrao

Director, Yahoo! Mobile Brazil

The UI is simple and compact to fit the size of your phone screen. Under the covers, we’ve packed in some cool features.

You can type the query using the touch screen or use the voice input to speak your search query. Whether you enter the query by touch screen or voice, you’ll see search suggestions that help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

In the Yahoo! Mobile Search results, you’ll see shortcuts, news and deeper results only a tap away. Try searching for “World Cup” and you’ll get a concise set of the latest scores and news, with deeper results about the games.

While the app is currently only available in the U.S., the voice input package is available in multiple languages.  Look for your country-specific version to roll out soon in your local Android Market.

Try out the Yahoo! Search widget and our other widgets by scanning the barcode below with your Android phone. We’d love to hear what you think.

Anil Panguluri
Yahoo! Search

We’ve created an app called Yahoo!^® Sketch-a-Search: you simply draw a shape on a map to discover local restaurants around your current location or anywhere you choose in the U.S. We’re also rolling out the new Yahoo! Search app, which embeds maps, localizes query suggestions as you type, and includes intelligent search history and voice search.

Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search app for iPhone and iPod Touch

Yahoo! Search app for iPhone and iPod Touch

Both Sketch-a-Search and the Yahoo! Search app are available at the iTunes store. You can learn more details about Sketch-A-Search and the Yahoo! Search App on the Yahoo! Mobile Blog.

With these new features, you can experience what search can be like without having to use keywords. Instead of a list of links, we get you the answers you need quickly in an easily digestible format, incorporating rich shortcuts, Yahoo! Search Assist, location-based technology, voice search, and more.

In addition to making mobile search easier to use, we are making it available on more phones around the world. We have partnered with more than 80 of the leading mobile carriers and manufacturers like Apple, RIM, AT&T, Nokia, América Móvil, and Telefónica. Yahoo! Search is available across mobile platforms in 43 countries and 18 languages.

We want to make it easier for you to use Yahoo! Search on your mobile phones and find new ways to deliver information that’s important to you. With the fast pace of mobile browser development, this is an exciting time for our industry.  Expect more from us in the future to help you keep up with the news, events, and activities that are happening around you.

Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President of Yahoo! Search Products

Yahoo! Search data also paints an intriguing timeline of the 7.0 earthquake that shook the country on Jan. 12. As news of the quake spread, concerned citizens took to the Yahoo! Search to learn the details and to research how to help.

Right after the news of the quake, people turned to their mobile devices for immediate information. In the first two days after the quake, Yahoo! Mobile searches on “Haiti Earthquake” increased 3,300 percent. Popular search themes centered on photos, relief efforts, Wyclef Jean, and current news almost immediately. Several of the top earthquake queries were in Spanish.  As the week went on, people started looking for more contextual information, wanting Haiti maps, asking “where is Haiti”, and looking for information on Haitian poverty and whether the country is cursed.

In Yahoo! Web search, searches focused more clearly on volunteering and donating aid and time. Users were deeply concerned about the plight of Haitian orphans, offered prayers for Haiti, and researched church-based relief organizations. People were also eager to donate their help via text messaging as we saw searches for “texting to help Haiti,” “text Haiti 90999,” and “text Yele.”

Many searches focused on the names mentioned in news reports about Haiti’s earthquake. Searchers looked for former president François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Port-au-Prince archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, and the head of the U.N. mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi. Haitian president René Préval also spiked as he appealed for aid.

As the immediate shock subsided, Web searchers expanded their interest, looking for information on the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighboring country that that offered a lot of aid to migrating survivors. People also want to know more about other large earthquakes, notably the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. They also looked up details about fault lines, causes of earthquakes and tsunamis, and the Richter scale for measuring the size of tremblers.

After learning of the quake, teams across Yahoo! stepped up to help with the relief efforts in a wide variety of ways. Yahoo! employees in the U.S. have donated more than $145,000 to the cause, including corporate matches for those donations. Yahoo! users have donated more than $1.5 million to support Haiti relief and rebuilding efforts globally. You can see more of our efforts on behalf of earthquake victims at Yodel Anecdotal. For up-to-date news about the Jan. 12 Haiti Earthquake, please visit http://news.yahoo.com/topics/haiti.

Jessica Hilberman

Yahoo! Search

We thought this would be a good opportunity to call out some of the key features we’ve introduced recently that have enhanced the mobile search experience.

In just the past few months, we have rolled out an auto-locate feature that uses cell tower triangulation and Wi-Fi to detect the user’s location, an enhanced Search Assist that incorporates the user’s recent search history, and a Windows Mobile client. In the two and a half years since we introduced Yahoo! oneSearch, we have sought to continuously innovate and deliver a great mobile search experience for our Yahoo! oneSearch users worldwide. Yahoo! oneSearch powers the search experience on more than 70 of the leading carrier portals around the globe, including most recently, new co-branded oneSearch experiences with Comcel and Movistar in several more Latin American countries.

Check out the results study’s results in this post from Search Engine Land. We always welcome to your feedback on how to improve Yahoo! oneSearch, so please comment below with your thoughts and requests.

Lee Ott
Yahoo! oneSearch