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Robyn Twomey Answer man: Yahoo! senior VP Jeff Weiner.
Two of the biggest Internet brands are battling for search supremacy: Yahoo!, an early online directory that quickly evolved into a full-service portal, and Google, the 5-year-old phenom that currently drives 75 percent of Net queries in the US. Yahoo! contributed to Google's startup funding, but the relationship soured last year when the upstart began adding services that encroached on Yahoo!'s turf. Now the portal is firing back. In a declaration of independence last December, Yahoo! bought Inktomi – which has its own search technology – and in April unveiled a revamped page that blends a directory with news, images, maps, and Yellow Pages. Still, Yahoo! searches are powered by … Google. Does the portal have a prayer of overtaking its erstwhile partner? Yahoo! senior VP Jeff Weiner answers this and other searching questions.
WIRED: The new Yahoo! search page looks a lot like Google's, and your results actually come from Google. Why shouldn't I go to the real thing instead of a knockoff? WEINER:The query box is just one part of a search. With Yahoo!, you can type a query – like "Palo Alto California pizza" – and then hit the Yellow Pages toggle, and we'll take you to a full listing. The same holds for news and maps, and that's just scratching the surface.
What will users find if they dig deeper? Consumers want three things: the ability to find exactly what they're looking for, ease of use, and speed. So those were our first principles. Then the question became, How do we develop a higher-quality user experience that leverages our assets? Consumers are very interested in shortcuts, so we added navigational shortcuts. You can type in any Yahoo! property, like "fantasy baseball!" – with the exclamation point – and go directly to that page. Consumers wanted the direct display of content within search results, so that when they search for, say, a map, they see it right away. They were very interested in product search.
Do you consider Google a competitor? Google is one part of our search solution. They're a backend technology provider. We've been pleased with our relationship.
Does the relationship have a future? We're not interested in being dependent on any one search provider. The acquisition of Inktomi enables us to control our own destiny. The relevance of Inktomi's results is on par with, if not better than, that of any algorithmic solution.
Yahoo! began as just a search engine, then went full-service. Are your efforts an admission that Yahoo! is trying to get back its focus? I don't think we ever lost focus. We've redoubled our efforts based on the demand for higher-quality search results.
Web mavens used to say content was king. Does search actually rule? The most important thing is the quality of the user experience. Yahoo! does a good job of integrating its products and services. That's why we have more than 200 million unique users in any given month. It's not about any single property. It's the whole experience.
For the record, why does Yahoo!'s song feature a guy yodeling over a hillbilly banjo riff? It's an indication of the passion and joy people have when they're using Yahoo!
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