Sathya Mithra

Bangalore: Yahoo!, the global Internet communication and media company which provides services to consumers and businesses worldwide, is considering blogging, as a possible service to its wide customer base in the near future.

In India for the official inauguaration of the Yahoo Software Development Center in Bangalore, Phu Hoang, Senior VP, Business Unit Engineering said that blogging was a "pretty cool thing" and that Yahoo! Inc would be considering an initiative for providing the service.
"It’s a relatively new space but it can prove to be exciting. Like most other popular services on the net like email and chat, blogging can be a great community-building tool. Yahoo! will continue to look into a blogging initiative along with services that can be built around it for customers," he said.

These statements come in the wake of Yahoo!’s biggest competitor in the search space, Google, acquiring Blogger.com, one of the largest blog hosting services on the net. Compounding on its already ambiguous relationship with Google, Yahoo! had recently acquired both Inktomi and Overture, while still in possession of a Google license - what analysts say is a bid to bridge the marketshare gap in the search space between the two.

According to Hoang, Yahoo! is also deeply involved in improving what he calls the "search experience".
"Though some good search engines, have been around for quite some time in this space, there is still a lot left for improvement. These include increased accessibility to vaster data, to make sure that searches cover all areas in the web, and understanding each user’s specific requirements for better customization."

He says that, there is also need for work to better understand the queries, that are typed in to improve the integrity of the results displayed. "All of this helps in reinforcing the overall search experience for the customer and search engines as a whole are still in the early stages of providing such an experience," he adds.

He states that Yahoo! was working on all of these processes, especially user identification and understanding, to provide for increased personalization, in a bid to increase the experience quotient.
Replying to a question on competition and consolidation in the search space, Hoang said, "Yahoo! has always kept an eye out for different technologies and solutions that can help business, and will strive to do whatever it takes, to provide a better search experience for our consumers." He asserts that "If our actions make other people react, then that’s perfectly fine. I also believe, that its not us against Google or any of the other players. Search has to do a lot with increased co-operation for better data access and assembly."

In response to a question on the future of the Google license that Yahoo! still possesses, Hoang said that, the company believed in controlling its own destiny and would take decisions based on the needs of the time. He also said that, Yahoo is committed to maintaining the partnerships of both their acquisitions but, is also open to a scenario where such partnerships may not continue due to circumstances.

Speaking on the Bangalore centre, Hoang said,"Bangalore holds a lot of promise with its impressive talent pool for Yahoo’s development activities. We are in the process of hiring and will be touching 150 in the next one year’s time."