Intent, not content, rules the search engine market
By Jaya Smitha Menon   |   Thursday, 03 December 2009, 01:08 IST
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Intent, not content, rules the search engine market
The Internet is under new management - Yours! Running it across the front page of national dailies and all television channels, Yahoo! has been going all out to capture the huge internet (search) market, by changing its global image and spending close to $100 million on the campaign. At the helm of the 'You' buzz in India is Shouvick Mukherjee, VP and CEO, Yahoo! India R&D. Mukherjee, a 10 year Yahoo! veteran, spearheads the centers' strategic contribution in delivering compelling global products and consumer experiences that touch the lives of half a billion Internet users worldwide. Siliconindia caught up with Shouvick Mukherjee, who spoke on issues ranging from the current 'You' campaign to the changing Yahoo! landscape. SI: Through the Internet, today users from all over the world can connect, freely communicate, exchange information and engage in various online activities. How has the user behavior changed the way the players outlook in the internet space? SM: Today, the world of web is evolving much faster and we recognize the importance of understanding the intent of the user rather than just generating the content. If you look at the search engines, Internet search is no longer about document retrieval. The expectation of the user is much high and we have to deliver on those lines. "Usability" is also one part of a bigger picture; it helps achieve the tasks a user sets out to achieve. "Usability" is important in a development lab, when prototypes are built. But then there also has to be an ethnographic, anthropological approach that looks at how this technology is being used. Humans are so creative, what are they using the technology for? How does it sit in everyday life? When we add applications we must understand how "useful" they are. So we are redefining the notions of accuracy and relevance. Hence, we give a lot of importance to research. Research not only just in terms of new products and applications, but of understanding the human behavior. Through our research we have also been able to deduce that there are a lot of people out there, who want to innovate and build their own applications. So there is a growing demand for this kind of a platform, and we want to attract more programmers. Keeping this in mind, Yahoo! has introduced the BOSS or Build Your Own Search Service, which provides developers free access to the Yahoo Search index. SI: You have been a part of Yahoo!, in the U.S. for over 10 years, and have had the opportunity to study user behaviour there. Now that you are heading Yahoo!'s research in India, how different do you find the Indian Internet user as compared to a user in the U.S.? SM: If you look at broadband penetration in the Indian market, it is very low. In fact, the total broadband subscriber base in the country rose only to 6.8 million in July, as per the data released by the Indian government. And, although Internet is being widely used for information in India, it is yet to be used as a tool, which is how it is used in U.S. Since, the entertainment and sports space is big in India, you will find users looking more for cricket scores or Bollywood related information. On the other hand, people in the U.S. will use the Internet extensively for online transactions, and e-shopping. This kind of usage is still in a nascent stage in India. The culture too plays an important role in this regard. In the U.S. market, Yahoo Personals is huge, it has a great design, the back-end algorithmic stuff, and the interactivity makes it usable. But in a market like India it is yet to pick up. SI: Keeping in mind, the change in user needs, the Internet is being opened up, driving the platform for rich applications. How open will be Internet going ahead? SM: The open strategy is being used to leverage the development network. The Web is about co-creation, groups of users building collectively, it is like a cottage industry of creation-the participatory nature allows us to harness the creativity of a large number of people. The Yahoo! 'Open' Strategy (Y!OS), is a company-wide plan to open up its assets to third party publishers, developers, and advertisers in the form of global platform services. The Y!OS platform includes the Yahoo! Application platform, which makes it possible to open up our properties and allow developers to build and deploy applications. Additionally there is a Yahoo! Social platform, which helps consolidate its social assets and makes them available to users everywhere, as well as the Yahoo! Web Services platform. So, by engaging with the developer community, we are establishing a social dimension. SI: Yahoo recently launched a $100 million global advertising campaign to create a buzz around its new look and a huge chunk of this money is being spent in India. Can you tell us more about the current campaign? SM: For the last several months, we at Yahoo! have been researching on the Internet usage pattern of our customers. The brand campaign is all about how Yahoo! gives the best of Web and makes 'your' Internet more personal to you. The idea is to create a buzz, which we have been successful in achieving. This is also the first integrated global consumer campaign that we have done - launched at the same time in the U.S., India, UK and Europe. It indicates that wherever you go, anywhere in the world, Yahoo! is there. In fact, as part of the launch of its global "It's You" brand campaign in late September, Yahoo! is inviting its users to participate in the creation of one of its best known brand assets - the Yahoo! Yodel. The campaign, which allows people to personalize and reinterpret the Yahoo! signature tune, mainly focuses on online promotions. SI: Can you tell us more about the academic initiatives that Yahoo has taken in the recent past? SM: Education is an area, where people spend a lot of time and energy just to find information on the internet. We have a Yahoo! Lab in Bangalore that is committed to building strong partnerships with the academic community to promote a culture of open collaboration and innovation between industry and academia in India. We are engaged with faculty of various Indian colleges through research grants, visits and collaborations, with students through Ph.D. programs, summer internships and hacking competitions and with the professional community through conference sponsorships and tech talks.

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