We know that many of you come to Yahoo! Video search to find entertainment-related information. Our video search traffic also shows us that many of those queries have an exploratory intent, including digging for great work from your favorite music artists.

Starting today, you can easily dive into albums and songs by your favorite music artist in Yahoo! Video Search. We have hooked into the “Web of Things” to intelligently extract the most popular albums and songs for artist or band queries. This feature lets you explore music artists intuitively and easily.

For instance, say you are looking for music videos from U2. The new video search music refiner on the left rail shows popular albums, such as The Joshua Tree, and top songs, such as “Beautiful Day.”

Click on an album or song, and Yahoo! Video Search shows videos for the album or song in an overlay page.

For example, when you click on The Joshua Tree on the left rail, you will see videos of the album’s tops songs, including “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “With or Without You.”

This is a great way to watch popular song videos from an album without losing the context of your original query.

For the video search music refiner, we tapped further into the Web of Things to give you a more personally relevant search experience. You’ve seen the image search travel refiner and the celebrity refiner – now you can give the video search music refiner a try.

Manish Sharma and Ishwar Sridharan

Yahoo! Video Search

Music is an integral part of everyday life. Since launching a partnership with Rhapsody in September 2008 and launching the FoxyPlayer last year, music has been an integral part of the Yahoo! Search experience as well.

We have found that nearly 6 percent of all Yahoo! searches are music-related. Given the massive number of things people search for, we think it is pretty significant.  With enhancements that we’ve made to the search experience, we are seeing a 38 percent increase in Rhapsody enhanced results served in our SERP since July.

We’ve made it easier to find music videos, artist information, and play full length songs from within the search results page. This is just one of the many ways Yahoo! is enhancing the search experience for music lovers. With Search Assist, Search Monkey, and Yahoo! Shortcuts, you can discover even more relevant information about your favorite artist. Wonder what U2 is up to these days? Search for U2 and you’ll see images and videos, and hear full-length songs all in one place.

At Yahoo! Search, our goal is to give you a more personally relevant search experience.  We are also continuing our investment in structuring the Web to allow you to explore a “Web of things,” more than just a Web of pages. That includes helping you find and explore everything there is to know about your favorite music artists.  Whether you like to rock out to The Killers, dance it up to Beyonce, or secretly sing along to Miley Cyrus, you can find relevant information about these artists and explore their music right at your fingertips on Yahoo! Search.

Larry Cornett

Vice President, Consumer Products, Yahoo! Search

About a year ago Yahoo! Search launched a music artist shortcut to make it easier for users to find quick details about artists — like videos, photos, sample song tracks, and even their official website links — directly from the search results page. This evening, we’re rolling out some key enhancements as part of our partnership with Rhapsody.

Now, in addition to gaining access to all of the artist background that you could before, you’ll also be able to play up to 25 full songs a month, as opposed to the 30-second samples from before. And, by tapping into the vast catalog of songs available on Rhapsody, we’re expanding the number of audio files that are available for playback and increasing the number of tracks in the shortcut from three songs to four. If you want to look over a greater list of songs, you’ll also be able to link directly to Yahoo! Music right from the shortcuts; full song playback will soon be enabled in Yahoo! Music as well, so stay tuned.

Now you’ll be able to listen to Rihanna, sing along to Madonna and JT or rock out to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs without having to leave the search results page or type in a log-in. Simply click your song of choice and the new media player from Yahoo! Music, called FoxyPlayer, will launch near the bottom of the page. The player is easy-to-use and offers full functionality for song playback, like artist and song info and even an expandable playlist tab. You’ll be able to continue browsing the results page while the player is in use or turn it off at any time with a single click.

Try it out and search for some of your favorites. We’ll continue to work with Rhapsody to showcase more of their deep music catalog in the near future, so keep your eyes (and ears) open for even more artists and songs.

For more information on our partnership with Rhapsody, check out the Music Help Pages.

Greg Makris
Yahoo! Search

I often get music artist recommendations from friends. It’s one of the quickest, easiest ways to hear about new bands that I might like. But when it comes to deciding if I actually like the music, I subscribe to the Ronald Reagan school of “Trust, but verify.” I prefer to get a taste of the artist before handing down my verdict, so it’s useful to watch some videos, listen to a few song samples and learn more about the artist. Today, Yahoo! Search rolled out a music artist shortcut feature that makes it faster and easier for me to determine if an artist is up to snuff.

Let’s use Feist as an example (a recent recommendation from Kevin, who’s posted here before). Entering “Feist” in the search box provides immediate access to the videos, songs and even the official site link (when there is one) — all from the search results page. There’s also quick links to see photos, find lyrics or check the discography (”Albums”).

And, if you’re just looking for a hit of nostalgia, check out an old music video that you may not have seen on TV. I thought U2’s “The Sweetest Thing” video was really amusing (but what’s Bono so sorry for?).

Try it for yourself! May I recommend Spoon or Zero 7? Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen have gotten a lot of attention lately. Or, take a trip down memory lane and check out The Rolling Stones or The Ramones.

And while you’re at it, here are some of the development team’s favorites:

- Ashley Hall: Angels and Airwaves

- Swati Raju: Macy Gray

- Sam Sanchez: Shakira, Bob Marley

- Felicia Jose: Thievery Corporation, Travis

We’ve got a few thousand artists covered right now and we’ll be working hard to expand the list (a lot of music artists just don’t have music videos). If your favorite music artist isn’t covered, let me know in the comments and I’ll investigate.

Ya-Bing Chu
Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

P.S. The first music video I ever saw was “Shout” by Tears for Fears. Before this experience, it had been 23 years since I saw it on MTV. Good times…