Yahoo! Search is Opening Up

Yesterday Yahoo posted an announcement about a new enhancement to their search product.
Today, Amit Kumar presented this evolution at SMX West.

The new focus is on completing tasks. Relevant media, task oriented links, Structured data. The ranking in SERPS remains that same, but the results are more focused based on what the site owner believes the user is trying to do. It can provide additional links directly on the SERP, ratings, sending links, products, media etc. Instead of having the engines 'guess', we can use our knowledge of what the user needs.

The features and enhancements are app based. There will be data feeds and information providers give to Yahoo! via the apps to which site owners can gain access, add their listings and create better SERPs for their users. These feeds may be third party ratings, product reviews, media etc. The site owners can turned these feeds on / off. Just how this will be shall be announced over time in the near future.

A question on Yahoo!'s commitment to this came up: What if publishers push forward only to have Yahoo! pull the plug. Amit pointed to the overall commitment to the open platform as an indication of it's seriousness and support.

Question on timing. Since we are a closed group and won't blog about it.[[[-mage no longer avilable----] But...
App Prototype development can take about 1/2 day. If you put it on your own listing, it can go live quickly. (Sony puts a product app for Sony.com) If it is open to others to add to their site, then the app will be submitted to an approval process (Sony's app used by retailers).

Just some thoughts. Think about Auto manufactures providing review feeds, spec feeds, images, or video. Theses feeds can be provided as a Yahoo! app that dealers can then add to their listings. Any product manufacturer can do this. Menus for restaurant chains? Product reviews from Consumer Reports? This really opens up great information access at very relevant times. These data sets, media, and other information can be used by many sites, and the providers of the information gain exposure and traffic. This is a great tool for the site publishers and for consumers.

If the information is bogus, users will have the ability to report abuses

Microsoft Live and Targeting the Hispanic Marketplace - or not.

I received an email last week from Joe Spector who launched the dating site QuieroLatino.com, targeted to the Hispanic market. He was put off by AdCenter's lack of targeting ability toward one of the fastest growing segments of the US population and wrote about his experience here. 

I would say that it was not just the lack of targeting ability, but what set Joe off was the refusal to even accept sites that are in Spanish. I understand this in the early parts of development, as the resources to match and understand any Language is daunting. But, to have come this far along and not add it to the basic service is a poor oversight. The truth is, AdCenter, and Microsoft in general, is really bad at Search. They have made little progress in expanding market share. After targeting French Canadians and English speaking North Americans, they pretty much focused on repackaging their search service (live.com) and integrating into the MS applications. 

While I understand Joe taking offense at their lack of acknowledgment of the importance of the Hispanic Market, the reality is that MS has just thrown up its arms with search in general. This isn't so much a dis of a particular market as it is a symptom of general ineptitude in the technology and marketing of search. Thus, MS is trying to buy what they can't build. 

Taking a step back from Search, SEW has a good perspective from Maria Lopez-Knowles, senior vice president of MRM Worldwide, about Hispanic marketing online. She even recognizes MSN's Hispanic portal as a good example of the way to communicate to a bi-lingual market... the US Hispanic market. However, it is more than language. There  is more than "one" Hispanic market. The Hispanic market is another example of people separated by a common language. Argentinian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Honduran, etc are distinct cultures that share a common language. Mix this with the impact of Latino immigrants and pop-culture-influenced- 1st-generation-bi-lingual Latinos, and the divisions become more fragmented, even within households. 

Mid last year, I spoke with Jon Santiago of Media 8  about communicating to the Hispanic Market (His firm specializes in marketing communications in South America and the Hispanic population in the U.S.). While he recognizes that in-language plays a role and markets his clients accordingly, he is quick to point out that in-culture is the key. This is a daunting task for any marketer. It means more than the one variable of language. It means an acknowledgment of many cultures under one label.

MSN's oversight is annoying. However, by focusing on the key cultural drivers of the various segments within the Hispanic Market, it becomes clear that there are many paths to successfully communicating and marketing to this diverse group within the U.S.. The use of an English language landing page, with links to the Spanish language content is not only an acceptable path, but one which may be in-line with the dual language mode of living pointed out by Maria Lopez-Knowles.