27 April 2007

Yahoo! India launches new services

This week, Yahoo! unveiled a new online maps offering in India. The Yahoo! India Maps launch came the day before rivals AOL were scheduled to debut their search portal in the country. While it may seem that this move was an part of intentional ploy to steal AOL's thunder, this is unlikely to be the case as Yahoo! has always made their presence felt in the Indian market.

While Google may be dominating the global search market on the whole, it is Yahoo! who is at the forefront of the online market in India. India is behind many European countries in terms of its online advertising revenue, currently spending only around $60 million per year. About 85 per cent of the country's internet users visit the Yahoo! search engine and the company has long been noted for its innovation in India.

It has been announced that Yahoo!'s research and development centre in Bangalore will now be the headquarters for new product engineering in emerging markets. The centre will work also work with other countries, including Brazil.

In addition to launching new services, Yahoo! has focused on the Indian languages market. In February, Yahoo! launched portals in seven Indian languages, as well as releasing local language plug-ins for its instant messenger service. And later this year, it plans to introduce local language plug-ins for its e-mail service as well.

Yahoo! India Maps
Yahoo! India Maps was launched in beta form on Wednesday and provides street-level maps, satellite maps and hybrid maps of over 170 cities, 4,785 towns, and 220,000 villages across India. CE Infosystems has provided the data for the maps.

Yahoo! India launches new services

George Zacharias, managing director of Yahoo! India, also indicated that Yahoo! India Maps will be available on mobile phones in the not too distant future.

Yahoo! India Our City
What's more, on the same day as the launch of Yahoo! India Maps, the search engine also launched 'Yahoo! India Our City'.

Yahoo! India launches new services

This feature was also launched in beta and features local maps, snaps, videos, and news for twenty Indian cities. Some of the content will be user generated.

David Filo, Co-Founder of Yahoo!, commented:

"Yahoo! India Our City provides an interesting, rich, and dynamically updated perspective of a city as seen and experienced by people at large. Users can use 'Our City' to explore photos, videos, events, news, weather, blogs, and share events, photos, videos and trip plans with others."

In the past, India has expressed concerns over Google Maps' satellite images of the country, claiming that exposure of key defence areas on the maps facility could help terrorist movements. However, Yahoo! has already spoken out on this issue, saying that they have taken special care here to prevent any undue exposure of sensitive installations.