Speaking of Search

Yahoo! media event spotlights search innovation

Because we’re constantly working to make the search experience more relevant, we also want the world to understand what we’re up to in the search business. That’s why today we hosted a media event, SearchSpeak 2010, to help the media know what’s going on.

The event, at our Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters, featured our new senior VP of search products, Shashi Seth, David Pann, VP of search advertising, and a slew of other executives. Shashi told the audience about consumer search innovations, and talked about the importance of search to Yahoo!, even in light of our potential partnership with Microsoft. “Yahoo has been in search, is in search, and will continue to be in the future,” Shashi said. “We’ll continue to drive innovation. It’s our stake in the ground.”

David talked about our latest innovations in paid search, including our network distribution feature and the Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop. “We’re focused on three key areas for advertising,” David said: “Better value, transparency and control, and innovation.”

Here’s an example of what the press is saying about Yahoo! search after today’s event:

All Things Digital: “[They debuted] a new mobile search app that uses a kind of Etch-a-Sketch type drawing technology–using fingers and not keywords–to help users find stuff.”

USA Today: “Yahoo executives are spending most of this morning outlining the company’s ambitious search plans.”

Dow Jones Newswires: “A senior Yahoo Inc. executive said Wednesday that the Web giant hasn’t exited the Internet search market, despite the company’s decision to strike a search pact last year with Microsoft Corp.”

TechCrunch: “Yahoo has been in search, is in search, and will continue to be in the future.”

Mashable: “The point seems to be: ‘We’re a pretty damn good search engine, you can’t ignore us!’ And in many respects, they’re right.”

—The Team