Yahoo is really quite ahead when it comes to understanding what people want from search on mobile.
Their OneSearch 2.0, launched today at CTIA Wireless 2008, is extremely intuitive. This is all thanks to Yahoo's open approach to allow third parties to add their applications and resources to the Yahoo engine.
Example: if you are searching for a person's name in their mobile search engine you will get social results from Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn pages that show their faces, but giving preference to any contacts with the same name in your address book.
Ask a question and you won't get the garbage search results displayed on Google mobile, you'll get a truncated answer. And if the search is about a restaurant, Yahoo will display reviews from yelp, you can book a table using Opentable or you can get directions - all on one page. This is all contextually relevant, so it takes into consideration your location and whatever other data is available on your phone & Yahoo account, to make the results as intuitive as possible.
What's even better is that you can now do all of this using voice to text. Yes, you just hold the call button say your search and it brings back relevant info directly. The most complex example used was "where can I find the best craps table in Vegas" which displayed answers that real people submitted.
Looking for a musicians name? Just say the name and get back a page of reviews, listen and buy the track, etc.
How cool is that?
If you want to test the voice to text bit on your Blackberry, here it is: http://m.yahoo.com/voice
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