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

• Canada
• UK
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Australia
• New Zealand

By default, Inquisitor will provide search results and suggestions from Yahoo!’s U.S. index, but you can choose to search using other countries’ engines by changing the country setting in the Inquisitor options menu. We hope you give the Inquisitor iPhone app a try!

Ariel Seidman & David Watanabe
Yahoo! Search

Inquisitor Mobile Search auto-completes your search and gives suggestions as you type to refine your search. When you type in your query, websites and suggestions appear immediately below the search box. Inquisitor also speeds up your search by quickly loading site summaries and allowing you to navigate between results and the browser with just one click.

Give the Inquisitor iPhone app a try (download it here at the Apple App store) and let us know what you think.

Ariel Seidman and David Watanabe
Yahoo! Search

Last August, we launched the Yahoo! oneSearch Shortcut to provide one-click access to Yahoo! oneSearch, making search easily accessible on mobile devices. With today’s launch, we’re making Yahoo! oneSearch Shortcut available on Windows Mobile devices in the U.S. With an integrated voice search you can speak or type your query directly from the home screen of Windows Mobile devices. We’ve also added an auto-locate feature on select devices to deliver local search results based on a combination of cell tower triangulation and Wi-Fi hotspots. You no longer need to type in your address or zip code to access local listings – Yahoo! oneSearch can provide results based on your location.

Finally, since we know it can be challenging to type on mobile devices, we’re improving our Search Assist technology on BlackBerry devices by incorporating the user’s search history. This will enable faster and easier input, delivering contextual recommendations and predictive text completion alongside the user’s previously searched terms. Simply type in your query and your recent searches or similar queries will display on the screen as a prompt. For example, while typing “Sus” in San Francisco, you may be offered Sushi Groove if you previously searched for it, or you may see “sushi recipe” as an assisted suggestion.

In this launch, we have also made the Yahoo! oneSearch Shortcut available on some of the latest Nokia, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile devices. It is also now available on select devices in Australia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Click here for additional information on device/country support.

For more information and to download the applications, Nokia and Windows Mobile users can visit our PC site or http://m.yahoo.com/shortcut from their mobile device. BlackBerry users can visit this website or direct their mobile phone browser to http://m.yahoo.com/voice. We hope you will try out these new features and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Joy Ghanekar
Yahoo! Mobile

The Yahoo! Mobile team has continued to develop new enhancements to make Yahoo! oneSearch easier and more effective for our users on the go. Today, we’re further enhancing the mobile search experience by rolling out a Yahoo! oneSearch shortcut for Nokia devices. This new shortcut provides users with one-click access to Yahoo! oneSearch through our downloadable client. Once installed, it only takes one click on your phone screen to initiate a search. Simply click on the pencil key or right shortcut key on your device, and you no longer have to hunt through your cell phone menu to conduct a search.

If you have a select Series 60 Nokia device (e.g. N70, N95, N73, 6120, and E65), give it a try. The Yahoo! oneSearch shortcut is currently available for you in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and South America. If you don’t have a Series 60 Nokia, we’re hoping to bring the oneSearch shortcut to you soon.

One of the key features of the Yahoo! oneSearch shortcut is the integration of Search Assist, which made its mobile debut in April at CTIA. Mobile Search Assist is powerful on the go when you’re having to type on small keyboards or “triple tap” phone buttons; it reduces the time it takes to enter a search term through real time search suggestions and related concepts for more refined results. For example, as you type in ‘Dark Knight‘, Search Assist may recommend suggestions such as Darth Vader or Olympian Dara Torres to help guide your search.

For more information, visit http://mobile.yahoo.com/onesearch/shortcut on your PC, or http://m.yahoo.com/shortcut on your mobile device. And let us know what you think in the comments below.

Joy Ghanekar
Yahoo! Mobile

With March Madness in full effect, the incessant score-checking is already underway. Yahoo! Mobile is making it a little easier to use search to keep up with your favorite teams.

Now that you’ve got your bracket filled out and your old college T-shirt freshly pressed, it’s go time. Will Western Kentucky be this year’s George Mason upset, or will they go the way of past Cinderella hopefuls and get sent packing after the second round? We obviously can’t predict the future, but we can give the men’s college basketball scores on your mobile phone using Yahoo! oneSearch. Simply go to m.yahoo.com on your mobile phone browser and search for ‘ncaa‘ or the name of your college team of choice. You’ll get the top scores per region from all your favorite teams on your mobile phone, so you can stay a step ahead of fellow fans with your quick knowledge of who made an early exit.

And when you’re not in full March Madness mode, the Yahoo! Mobile team has brought another favorite pastime to your mobile phone.

For iPhone users, you can now watch streaming movie trailers directly from oneSearch by going to m.yahoo.com and searching for ‘movies‘ or a movie name. When you click on the movie image in the search results page, you’ll be able to view the movie trailer streamed in QuickTime format and optimized for your iPhone. So if you’re trying to plan out your weekend, or you’re bored on the train, check out the top box office trailers like “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who” or “10,000 B.C.” through oneSearch. Simply click on the movie image and you’ll be directed to the trailer. You can also find showtimes near you and buy tickets for select theaters from the movie menu.

Joy Ghanekar
Yahoo! Mobile

We’re rolling this out today to Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.

Yahoo! oneSearch and Yahoo! Answers both offer platforms for searching — oneSearch with instant results to your queries from your mobile phone and Answers with the content of 350 million answers from over 95 million users worldwide. We wanted to integrate these two methods of searching because we know that sometimes you need to tap people who are “in the know” when you’re trying to find a quick answer on the go.

Starting today, when you use oneSearch to conduct queries for advice or reference topics, the search results you’ll receive will include relevant answers from other Yahoo! Answers users all over the world, as well as the usual news headlines, images, business listings, etc. When you search for opinions or recommendations from others, such as ‘What is the best apartment dog?,’ you’ll see a cluster of Yahoo! Answers results. And for factual queries like ‘2008 Summer Olympics,’ your oneSearch results will show content from Wikipedia as well to give you a little something extra to chew on.

The oneSearch team also rolled out flight information search today, so flight status, times, gates, etc. are all accessible from your mobile phone. Here’s how it works: If you search ‘United Airlines 90‘ or ‘UA 90‘ (or any other airline and flight) through oneSearch, you’re presented with a quick snapshot of the flight information. You can try it out here or text the query to 92466 (spells YAHOO) and we’ll return a text message with the same information.

Ultimately, oneSearch’s goal is to get you instant answers from a variety of sources and Yahoo! properties so you have the right information when you’re mobile. By adding sources like Yahoo! Answers, Wikipedia and flight info, we’ll be able to help users find opinions, suggestions and facts quickly and on the go.

Enjoy!

Lawrence Kim
Yahoo! Search

Well… no, I didn’t really go to the wedding with Yahoo! oneSearch as my date. I had my good friend Vickie by my side. But I couldn’t have enjoyed the weekend quite as much without my mobile device and Yahoo! oneSearch with me in tow.

Like most wedding weekends that have a number of activities leading up to the big day, I had some downtime in between the rehearsal dinner, cocktail party and ceremony. While I wasn’t catching up with Vickie, drinking wine or prepping for the ceremony, I played around with Yahoo! oneSearch and decided I was going to keep track of how many times I used the service during the weekend, just for kicks.

It was more than I realized.

In a random debate with my fellow wedding-goers, I used Yahoo! oneSearch to prove to them that the pasties I was talking about were not the body-decor they were thinking of. A quick image search for ‘pasties Michigan‘ on Yahoo! oneSearch proved my understanding of them and got me out of trouble with Vickie. Phew.

When Vickie was at the wedding rehearsal, I even found show times for The Simpson’s Movie and was able to sneak away for a couple of hours to catch the hilarious flick with some of my friends. Shhh, don’t tell!

And, perhaps my most practical use of Yahoo! oneSearch was when we were presented with a wine opener dilemma just hours before the wedding banquet. We needed to find some extra ones quickly and get back to the reception in time, so I found a nearby Wal-Mart and saved the day with the necessary vino reinforcements.

After putting it to the test that weekend, I found Yahoo! oneSearch to be easy and helpful for my day-to-day mobile search needs, especially when I needed accurate local information quickly. Recently, our team made some tuning with the local intent of user queries and now the service is more likely to have local search results on the top of the results page. So when you too are presented with a corkage dilemma, you can course-correct just as quickly and efficiently. Check out this search for Yellow Cab in the Mountain View, CA area.

Let us know what your experience has been with one of your weekends and Yahoo! oneSearch. We’re interested in hearing how you found it useful and even some ideas for making it a better resource for you on the go. Drop us a note in the comments below.

Paul Yiu
Yahoo! Search

Now ready for primetime, the new version of Yahoo! Go 2.0 and the access to localized beta versions in 13 countries will be available today, expanding to more than 200 different mobile phones in the U.S. by the end of July and more than 400 by end of year. Helping to broaden the adoption of the mobile Internet, the team has included a few new enhancements in this version, including increased speed, better e-mail, more powerful maps, easier navigation and better mobile search results.

Further expanding the mobile search experience is the recent development coming out of Yahoo! oneSearch this week. Yahoo! has now signed partnership agreements with six major mobile operators across Asia to distribute oneSearch, reaching nearly 100 million new subscribers. Since its beta launch in January and Asia launch in May, we’ve listened to all the great feedback from our users and have constantly worked to improve performance, make navigation easier and increase local relevance — all with the goal of giving consumers better search results and instant answers.

Dave Ko, VP and GM of Yahoo!’s Connected Life division in Asia, just announced these partnerships and the rollout of the new version of Go 2.0 at CommunicAsia 2007 in Singapore. You can take a look at his conference recap and the details of the recent oneSearch expansion here.

Paul Yiu
Yahoo! Search