When I met with Yahoo earlier this week to hear about it I received the now familiar speech that Yahoo is still very much in search and continuing to “innovate” around the UI and UX. There have been some interesting efforts along those lines on the PC in the past (Yahoo Search Direct), but Axis actually is genuinely different and noteworthy.

Three screen experience

Axis is available for all three screens: PC (as a browser plug-in), the iPad and the iPhone (as apps). Android is coming.

Axis is a fully functional browser that syncs content across all screens if users are signed in. Like other browsers Axis features tabs and book marks and can render any web page.

On the PC it functions more as a “companion” search bar at the bottom of the page on each of the major browsers: IE, Chrome and Firefox. Below is an example of how it looks on Chrome in the context of a search for “Hawaiian vacations.” I’ve got the standard Google results and then Axis results horizontally across the bottom of the screen:

It doesn’t automatically insert or mirror the query you’ve done on Google or Bing or launch the module you see above. You have to manually enter the query at the bottom of the page. Then it offers a visual preview (live pages) of the top ranked sites. The ranking of these sites is somewhat different than conventional Yahoo search results. Clicks and time on the underlying sites are factored into the ranking of these Axis results.

Users can then horizontally scroll through results rather than clicking back and forth on links. These images run for the equivalent of the first two pages of search results and then you get text and descriptions. However Yahoo suggested that most people aren’t going to go beyond a page or two of results anyway. My sense is that people will horizontally scroll for “longer” than vertically.

While this PC experience is useful and provides a kind of secondary or back-up search capability, Axis is ultimately about delivering a better, mobile-optimized search experience that completely eliminates the “10 blue links.”

Getting rid of blue links

Yahoo special products director Ethan Batraski said that Yahoo was trying to get rid of the interim “second page” of search results (the list of links) and go right from the query to the web results in “one step.”

There have been other PC search engines and mobile apps to present visual results rather than links, most recently in mobile by Do@ (now Everything.me). All of those essentially failed. But Yahoo has the advantage of scale and greater visibility than any of the visual search startups that came before.

Whenever you’re on a specific website, you can pull down the page and see the horizontal bar of search results. It’s always there in the background. Touching another image loads that page but the search results remain in the background and accessible until you do a new query. You’re not hitting the back button to return to search results.

This functionality works relatively well on the iPhone (especially image search) but it really is best shown on tablets (iPad only for the moment). The larger screen enables the visual nature of Axis to shine.

There’s also a personalized home page with bookmarks and saved articles that carries across screens when signed in. Users can sign in with Yahoo, Google or Facebook log-in credentials to access the capability.

About the “Axis” name

I asked Yahoo about the name “Axis,” which I said reminded me of World War II. They responded that they went through many names and there are “negative connotations” to others as well, including Chrome and Safari (though not many readily come to mind). Another interesting element here is the black aesthetic.

Yahoo has done market testing and sees an opening with young, affluent early adopter males. (Perhaps the “Spike TV” crowd.) Jokes aside, the company is seeking to cultivate new audiences with Axis and the edgier image is part of that effort. It struck me a bit like a sports team adopting tougher-looking uniforms and colors.

Yahoo went to some length with me and in the press materials to underscore that there’s innovative technology on the back end behind Axis:

Axis is built upon the Yahoo! Cocktails mobile development platform, which is designed for creating deeply personalized products that are built for connected devices first. Comprised of Mojito, an open source JavaScript MVC framework and Manhattan, a cloud-based hosted environment, Cocktails is a blend of open, standard web technologies including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and Node.JS.

Differentiated but will it “move the needle”?

Doing my best Walt Mossberg, I can say that after using it for several days on both the iPhone and iPad, and to a lesser degree, on the PC I think Yahoo has created a useful and differentiated mobile search experience. The syncing and multi-screen capability are also useful, although not unique.

Search Direct is the mother/father of this experience. And if it “takes” we may see traditional Yahoo search on the PC incorporate some or many of these UI/UX features and elements. That very much remains to be seen and is contingent on the success of Axis.

There will inevitably be questions like, “Will it move the needle for Yahoo?”

I don’t know. It depends on how aggressively Yahoo promotes Axis, how many people try it out and how many continue to use it. However I don’t think we’ll see any dramatic change in user behavior in the near term. But it does put some additional UI pressure on Google in mobile search, which just released a new version of its iPhone app today.

There are no ads for now. But one can easily imagine display ads showing up among the visual search results in the not too distant future. Yahoo wants to build an audience before it starts inserting ads, however.

Because Axis is quite distinct from the traditional PC and mobile search experience some will like it but some may find it too foreign. However I would encourage you to try it. It’s definitely worth a test drive.

See also related coverage from around the web on this topic from Techmeme.

According to our source, comScore will report that both Google and Bing have made small, incremental gains since last month and seen modest growth since last year. One or both are growing, it appears, at Yahoo’s expense. AOL and Ask are basically flat.

Yahoo is at its lowest point to date and has recorded its eighth straight monthly decline in terms of market share. Our source believes that Yahoo’s share could sink quite a bit lower over time.

Here’s the comScore share breakdown for the past two months compared with a year ago:

Data source: comScore (5/12)

These data do not include mobile search query volumes. We know that many publishers are seeing a range of between 15 percent and 25 percent of their queries now coming from mobile devices. In some categories the percentages are much higher: restaurants for example where 40 percent or even 50 percent of traffic is now from mobile.

Google is far and away the dominant provider of browser-based mobile search query volume in the US.

Postscript: Now the official comScore numbers are out and they’re consistent with what we posted above.

Since they previously migrated all Yahoo algorithmic search results to Bing, the transition is now complete in these countries. The migration has been underway since February.

Next up for the transition comes Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Yahoo and Microsoft will start working with partners to make the change this month. The companies have typically offered migration assistant software, to help smaller Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers make the switch with as little pain as possible.

Previously, the Search Alliance migrated advertisers in North America and India.

The migration of advertisers follows the transition of all algorithmic results worldwide, on desktop and mobile, in 2011.

Total search revenue was $470 million, up 3 percent vs. last year. Search revenues (ex-TAC) were up 8 percent to $384 million (vs. $357 in Q1 2011). Total display ad revenues were down 2 percent, however, to $511 million.

The search gains came notwithstanding a decline in overall query volume last quarter, according to comScore.

New CEO Scott Thompson said in a blog post, “These results are clearly the right direction for our business and I am very excited about our opportunities ahead. I know we can deliver even more with our new structure, business priorities and clear focus. I am more convinced than ever of the value of our assets and the potential of this business.”

Thompson also announced other positive metrics for the company:

• Worldwide visitors to Yahoo! properties and branded sites increased 7%
• Media properties page views increased 10%
• Minutes spent on communications and communities increased 14% and 8% in media properties

This is a little bit of a gift for Thompson, who will make his first quarterly appearance before financial analysts on the 2pm/5pm earnings call coming up.

Two weeks ago Yahoo announced that it was restructuring and laying off 2,000 employees. Yahoo is retaining search (at least on paper), elevating former Yahoo Search head Shashi Seth to lead “Connections,” one of the company’s three new consumer divisions that includes the search group.

An improving economy has given Yahoo earnings a bit of momentum it appears. However it will be up to Thompson and his executive team to build on that and make sure it continues.

Postscript: According to TechCrunch, Yahoo CEO Thompson seeks to impose some Steve Jobsian product simplification on the company. He said that he would be shuttering as many as 50 properties to generate more focus on core products. The particular sites weren’t identified on the earnings call however.

Related Entries

• Yahoo’s Re-Organization: Search Stays Alive, At Least On Paper
• comScore: Only Search Engine To See Drop In Queries In March Was Yahoo
• Yahoo In A Fight For Its Life
• Yahoo Confirms 2,000 Employees Getting the Axe
• Will Pending Layoffs Put Final Nail In Yahoo Search?

Search Engine market share has not changed much between the various search engines:

• Google’s share of searches in March was 66.4%, compared with 66.4% in February 2012 and 65.7% in March 2011.
• Yahoo’s share of searches in March was 13.7%, compared with 13.8% in February 2012 and 15.7% in March 2011.
• Bing’s share of searches in March was 15.3%, compared with 15.3% in February 2012 and 13.9% in March 2011.
• AOL’s share of searches in March was 1.6%, compared with 1.5% in February 2012 and 1.6% in March 2011.
• Ask’s share of searches in March was 3.0%, compared with 3.0% in February 2012 and 3.1% in March 2011.

In terms of search query growth and decline between March 2011 to March 2012:

• Google’s queries increased 10% y/y in March.
• Yahoo’s queries decreased 5% y/y in March.
• Bing’s queries increased 19% y/y in March.
• AOL’s queries increased 5% y/y in March.
• Ask.com’s queries increased 7% y/y in March.

Mobile search queries are not included in this report.

The data should be published on comScore’s press releases page shortly.

Related Entries:

• Bing And Google Gain Market Share While Yahoo Drops
• Bing Now A Full Point Ahead Of Yahoo In Search Share — comScore
• December “Explicit” Search Numbers: Bing Now Ahead Of Yahoo
• Bing, Yahoo Now Neck & Neck In US Search Market Share
• Search Engine Market Share Remains Steady In October, comScore Says

Yahoo’s new corporate structure will take effect on May 1st and have three primary divisions:

• Consumer – this will have three units: Media, Connections and Commerce
• Regions – this is the division that serves Yahoo advertisers and is “accountable for all Yahoo revenue”
• Technology – the infrastructure and platform division

AllThingsD has posted the full text of Thompson’s memo, which lists Yahoo’s search product as part of the “Connections” unit in the Consumer division:

Connections will be led by Shashi Seth, and include consumer businesses that connect and inform our users including Search, Communications and Social properties such as Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Answers, and more. The highest priority for Shashi and his team will be to think well beyond how users search, communicate and share online today. The Connections team is charged with fundamentally re-imagining how we design and deliver the next generation of these foundational Yahoo! experiences.

There were reports in recent weeks that Yahoo was at least considering ways to get rid of its search business altogether, a business that — quite remarkably — still has about 1,800 employees (according to a recent Reuters article that cited an unnamed Yahoo executive).

Thompson’s memo at least gives temporary reprieve to that group of Yahoo search employees. But given the company’s ongoing troubles, the layoffs and the fact that Yahoo doesn’t have its own search engine anymore, Yahoo Search may be alive on paper, but there’s no guarantee it’ll live a long life.

Following the announcement of 2,000 layoffs earlier this week Thompson sought to reassure Yahoo employees in a company memo. A streamlined organizational structure will better enable Yahoo to compete in the future, he reportedly said.

That new structure will apparently not include Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, who has resigned. His organization took a disproportionate hit in the layoffs and is being “blown up” according to AllThingsD.

Reuters reports that Thompson’s plan will focus on three areas: “core media and communications,” “platforms” and “data.” We’ll see how that impacts what remains of Yahoo search and other products. Notwithstanding the search outsourcing deal with Microsoft, apparently there are still a remarkable “1,800 staffers for search,” according to an anonymous Yahoo executive quoted in the article:

The fate of several Yahoo businesses remains uncertain, particularly the search business, according to the source, who wished to remain anonymous because the comments involved company matters. While Yahoo struck a deal with Microsoft Corp in 2009 to outsource much of its search operations, Yahoo still employs roughly 1,800 staffers for search, the executive said.

My view has been that Yahoo made a strategic mistake in doing the search deal with Microsoft and has “paid” for it ever since it in lost talent and revenue.

Earlier this year the company shuttered a bunch of mobile apps that were underperforming. The Next Web said that Yahoo’s Asian Foursquare lookalike service Koprol is one that may also be in jeopardy. Undoubtedly there will be other Yahoo products that suffer or are entirely shuttered in the forthcoming reorg.

Whatever Thompson says next Tuesday it will be met with skepticism by the tech community, unless or until the attempted turnaround demonstrates real results. There have been too many Yahoo CEOs announcing too many comeback strategies over the past several years.

While Yahoo still has three of the top 10 US websites according to Hitwise, it has entered a kind of negative spiral that it may not be able to escape. Its value as a company and a brand has steadily eroded.

The recent layoff notices have no doubt created a kind of numbness internally among the employees that remain. They’ll be working under conditions of stress and uncertainty — not the kind of upbeat atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation.

Stock image from Shutterstock, used under license.

]]> http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-in-a-fight-for-its-life-117618/feed 5 http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-comfirms-2000-employees-getting-the-axe-117310 http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-comfirms-2000-employees-getting-the-axe-117310#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:01:27 +0000 Greg Sterling http://searchengineland.com/?p=117310 After several days of rumors, first reported by AllThingsD, Yahoo confirmed this morning that it’s restructuring and laying off 2,000 employees:

Today, the company will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or phased transition.

Yahoo! expects to realize approximately $375 million of annualized savings upon completion of all employee transitions. The company currently expects to recognize the majority of an estimated $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge relating to employee severance in its second quarter financial results. The company may incur additional charges in connection with this action . . .

Yahoo currently has about 14,000 employees. The company hasn’t indicated where the axe will fall. However AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher (based on her inside informants) speculates that layoffs will be across the board but hit several areas in particular:

The layoffs, which will touch all units of the company, are expected to hit hardest in the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving . . .

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated . . . Also set to be hard hit are Yahoo’s local businesses, as well as its marketing and research divisions . . .

Swisher further speculates that current Yahoo search chief Shashi Seth “is likely to run consumer products,” which will house whatever remains of Yahoo’s search business. It’s pretty clear, however, that whatever efforts Yahoo had been making around search innovation will be greatly diminished now if not entirely eliminated.

We’ll have to wait to see what remains of Yahoo after the dust settles — but it’s looking like not much. Oh the humanity.

Public domain image via US government archives. 

Related Entries

• Will Pending Layoffs Put Final Nail In Yahoo Search?
• A Search Eulogy For Yahoo
• What’s Yahoo’s “Plan B” For Search?
• It’s Finally Official, Microsoft & Yahoo Make A Deal, Yahoo Gives Up On Search
• Yahoo, Microsoft Close Search Deal
• Yahoo, Once King Of Keyword Research Tools, Now Recommends Others (Including Google’s)
• Revisionist History: Bartz Claims Yahoo Was Never A Search Engine

At AllThingsD today, Kara Swisher is reporting that Yahoo is planning substantial layoffs as early as next week, with a company restructuring to be revealed the week after that. Swisher, who’s been correct on things like this in the past, mentions “a half-dozen sources” in reporting on Yahoo’s impending plans.

Of note for Search Engine Land readers is the discussion of what might happen to Yahoo Search. AllThingsD says that Yahoo has been in talks with both Google and Microsoft.

“[Yahoo CEO Scott] Thompson and others are still trying to figure out how to dispense with its ad technology org and, potentially, its search business. He has been in discussions with both Microsoft and Google about this, although there are other possibilities, too.”

One of those “other possibilities” appears to be Yahoo holding on to at least some of its search business, which AllThingsD says could be rolled into a “global media” division with Yahoo’s communications business.

Yahoo got out of the core search business when it outsourced its search results to Bing in August 2010. That 10-year agreement calls for Bing to power Yahoo’s search results and Microsoft’s adCenter to handle self-service search ads (while Yahoo continued to service “premium” advertisers).

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz promised that Yahoo would “continue to innovate” on the user interface/experience side. While there have been a few changes here and there, Yahoo’s share of the U.S. search market has been sliding consistently.

So, while my headline asks if the final nail could soon hit the Yahoo search coffin, I’m sure Danny Sullivan would argue that it already happened three years ago.

Keeping in mind this isn’t yet the official comScore release, the following are the numbers for February:

• Google: 66.4 percent (vs. 65.4 percent a year ago)
• Bing:  15.3 percent (vs. 13.6 percent a year ago)
• Yahoo: 13.8 percent (vs. 16.1 percent a year ago)
• Ask: 3 percent (vs. 3.2 percent a year ago)
• AOL: 1.5 percent (vs. 1.7 percent a year ago)

The combined search alliance share is now 29.1 percent, essentially flat and where it has been for many months. However Yahoo’s decline since last year at this time has been significant.

For comparison, here are the official comScore numbers from January, 2012:

The data above do not reflect mobile search market share, which accounts for between 15 percent and 30 percent of query volume in some categories. There, Google is almost totally dominant.

US mobile search market share

Source: StatCounter

Postscript: This afternoon comScore published the official search market share figures for February. They’re consistent with what we presented above: