Yahoo! on March 23 began a US rollout of a feature that delivers real time Internet search results as quickly as people can time queries. A test version of Search Direct will be added in coming months to all Yahoo! properties with search query boxes. Search Direct predicts what people may be seeking with each letter typed query boxes and then pops up an evolving set of results.
"It's not just a bunch of links," said Yahoo! chief product officer Blake Irving. "It is images and data you were looking for; much smarter and much faster." The feature is also being crafted for smartphones and tablet computers.
"That is where users don't have the screen real estate, the time, or patience to dive into those links of results," Yahoo! search senior vice president Shashi Seth said as he demonstrated Search Direct.
"Our job from here on is to find the results for users as quickly as we can." Irving said the move underscores the pioneering Internet firm's commitment to search despite a deal that has Microsoft's Bing engine doing the laborious job of gathering up-to-date website information that Yahoo! can mine. "The search game is incredibly important to us, because we know it is what people want to engage in," Irving said.