Yahoo Inc. will serve as AT&T Mobility’s on-deck search vendor, and will aggregate both Internet information as well as listings from the carrier’s content catalogue – including ringtones, wallpaper and games – into its search results. Yahoo replaces InfoSpace Inc. as AT&T Mobility’s search vendor.
“Our customers want mobile search to be convenient and intuitive, and Yahoo oneSearch is an important step for us in delivering that level of experience to them,” said Michael Bowling, VP of converged services for AT&T.
Yahoo’s win over InfoSpace comes as little surprise. InfoSpace enjoyed a solid position in the wireless industry at the turn of the century, but over the past several years the company has floundered. Motricity acquired InfoSpace’s mobile services division for $135 million in cash last year.
Yahoo’s search service will sit on AT&T Mobility’s on-deck MEdia Net portal. It will provide access to news, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr photos and Web images, and Web and mobile web sites. However, AT&T’s Yellowpages.com will provide local search information to customers as part of the agreement – thereby bypassing Yahoo’s own local search function.
The deal again highlights the importance of mobile search in the wireless landscape. A range of companies, from giants like Google Inc. to startups like 4INFO, are working to plumb the search market via a range of technologies and business dealings.
