MobileCrunch noticed Yahoo has added voice search capabilities to their Yahoo One Search iPhone App. I spent a few minutes testing it out and I have to say, that is does an okay job. I didn’t conduct enough tests to really compare it against Google’s iPhone voice search feature. They are both different in how they work.

First let me show you Yahoo’s voice search for a test on [who is barry schwartz]:

Step 1: Click on the “Press + Speak” button to activate voice search:

Step 2: Speak when button turns red and then tap it again when you are done talking:

Step 3: The button turns blue to show it is processing your search:

Step 4: Yahoo shows the search result, and in this case, wrong (I tried three times):

Google’s voice search works a bit differently.

Step 1: Either put the phone to your ear or click the microphone icon:

Step 2: Just speak and when you are done speaking, Google knows and shows that it is processing your search:

Step 3: Google displays search results:

So, Google is one step less, which is nice for a mobile search app.

Google has announced the addition of voice search and My Location on the Google Mobile App for Blackberry. The new Blackberry additions are features that have been available on the Google Mobile App for iPhone since November.

The My Location feature lets you search without needing to input a city name or some other geographic modifier. Voice search is what it sounds like — a way to search by speaking your query.

Google had offered voice search as a separate download for its Google Maps Blackberry app last summer. They launched the Google Mobile App for Blackberry this past September.

The New York Times reports in Friday’s newspaper that Google’s iPhone app will be updated with voice search capability. The move should come as no surprise: The launch of Goog411 in 2007 brought immediate speculation that mobile voice search was on the way, and Google tells the Times that data collection from the Goog411 project helped create this new iPhone service.

With the new Google iPhone app, you’ll be able to speak your search query into the phone rather than having to type it out. The Times article explains what happens after you ask your question:

“The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.

The search results, which may be displayed in just seconds on a fast wireless network, will at times include local information, taking advantage of iPhone features that let it determine its location.”

The Times article says Google’s updated iPhone app should be available Friday. It’s a free update, and Google expects to make the voice search feature available on other phones, too.

Postscript from Greg: I just checked and the app doesn’t yet appear to be available in the iTunes store. As the Markoff article mentions in the Times, both Yahoo and Microsoft have a variety of voice search apps.

Microsoft’s Live Search mobile client app has offered voice for some time, but it’s limited to mostly local categories. Microsoft also owns Tellme, which offers both the free directory assistance alternative 800-555-Tell and an app for BlackBerry that is voice powered. Microsoft also separately operates 1-800-Call-411.

In July Google introduced a voice-powered version of Google Maps for BlackBerry. Earlier this year Yahoo introduced voice for oneSearch (full web search) with Vlingo. This is what Google is now introducing essentially.

As mentioned, there are also a host of free directory assistance alternatives in the market (six or seven major ones), including Tellme, Call-411 and Goog411. The recognition engine behind Goog411 powers the new iPhone voice search.

Among the range of “voice search” and free directory assistance alternatives services now in the market, mobile ChaCha is noteworthy because it allows users to ask any question, essentially full web search, not just “what city what listing.” It also uses humans behind the scenes to disambiguate and answer queries. ChaCha has said that some of its heaviest users are doing query volumes that mirror search activity levels on the desktop. Hypothetically the more queries, the more ads — potentially.

In terms of the iPhone, a range of companies are working voice “search” or control for the device, including Nuance which previously demo’d voice control and search for the iPhone. The first to officially offer a voice capability for search was Dial Directions, which has two voice controlled iPhone apps, Say Who and Say Where. The former is voice control for contacts/dialing and the latter, introduced several months ago, is voice-based local search through selected sites via the Safari browser.

The key with all of these voice applications is the accuracy of the speech recognizers. The failure rates remain an issue, although they’re improving and variable from app to app.

So far voice has not proven to be the “killer app” for mobile search (as I once believed it would be). However Google’s new voice search iPhone capability should be helpful in selected situations — while in the car, for example, when directory assistance is most heavily used or for longer “long tail” queries that are highly specific. Indeed, it may result in longer or more precise query strings.

Regardless, I’m sure the new Google voice search capability will be quite popular among iPhone users.

Yellow pages publisher R.H. Donnelley (RHD), which recently acquired Business.com and owns search marketing firm LocalLaunch, is testing a new voice local mobile search product, 1-800-CallDex, in four U.S. markets: Denver, Phoenix, Spokane (WA) and Tucson. It offers a suite of services powered by speech and local mobile search enabler CallGenie, which is also behind similar services in Canada and with several U.S. partners including Verizon.

CallGenie enables local category search via neighborhood, near an intersection or a landmark in addition to traditional “name and number” search.

RHD, which owns the DexKnows Internet yellow pages site, is the latest to join the “free directory assistance” movement. Others already in the segment include:

• Jingle Networks (1-800-Free411)

• AT&T’s 1-800-YellowPages
• Google’s Goog411
• Dial Directions
• Microsoft’s Tellme
• Say Hello
• 1-800-SanDiego

The new 1-800-CallDex service is a trial, but it’s likely to take hold because of this competitive landscape and the billions of calls that come through conventional directory assistance. When it comes to mobile, publishers and providers need a diversified strategy to reach consumers. Voice and “free DA” represent the broadest market potential and lowest barrier to entry for consumers in mobile.

Voice technology provider VoiceSignal and directory services company INFONXX are launching an “embedded” voice-driven local search product for mobile phones called “VSearch.” Available starting in March, the two companies described the service in their announcement this morning:

VoiceSignal will provide the speech recognition and application software and INFONXX will provide content and search support. The product will deliver to consumers a wide range of innovative information services including access to traffic, weather information, cinema times, stock quotes, horoscopes and sports scores

The technology will be embedded into mass market handsets made by the world’s leading OEMs, with Samsung Electronics positioned to be first to market in Europe with the revolutionary new platform.

A less expansive but similar offering is the recent TellMe by Mobile release. Currently INFONXX operates the consumer-facing directory assistance (DA) offering 118118 in the UK, which last year launched (together with MIVA) an interesting and, apparently, successful PPText ad program. (That will be the subject of a later post.)

VSearch will be ad supported. Accordingly, it loosely falls into the category of ad-supported DA now dominated in the U.S. by Jingle Networks (1800-Free-411), but also occupied by AT&T’s new 1800-YellowPages and several others.

I had a relatively long conversation yesterday about the state of mobile marketing with iCrossing’s Noah Elkin. We were discussing adoption trends and the still-many barriers to mobile Internet and mobile search usage. There’s still a great deal of pain involved in conducting mobile searches, notwithstanding some rapid improvements in the mobile sites and applications being offered by Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. We also discussed the challenges the mobile carriers face in building their own search and monetization platforms.

But while everyone’s focused on adoption of the “mobile Internet” (text is separate), it’s quite possible that these voice-based mobile search/free DA approaches will have mass-market appeal and become the locus of adoption in the near term for most consumers. They of course are imperfect too, but they’re familiar and accessible to people from their long history of experiences with traditional DA, which currently represents many billions of “searches” annually.