Yahoo Inc. ratcheted up its sponsored mobile search program on Wednesday, launching a beta test for all users of its mobile portal in the United States and United Kingdom. Phone users with access to the Yahoo Mobile network will now see paid results when they search for certain terms. The full beta test follows limited trials in the two countries as well as a broader rollout in Japan, said Michael Bayle, senior director of monetization at Yahoo. The company plans to gradually expand the search terms involved.
Both Yahoo and Google Inc. are working to expand their lucrative search advertising businesses to the still-emerging mobile Web. The challenges include creating a good user interface on a wide variety of phones and determining the value of a consumer's click on a mobile search result. But the rewards may be rich from the billions of cell phones in the world, said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, in Oakland, California.
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News source: InfoWorld
