It's been easy to accuse Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) of playing the "me too" game lately. Today, however, the company forged ahead, brandishing two new services that may do a lot to differentiate Yahoo! from its ravenous competitors and lure users to come and hang out awhile.
Talk about video killing the radio star. Yahoo! will tempt users with video search, which allows them to search for video clips. Next on the agenda, Yahoo! will offer live traffic maps, bringing a national flavor to what has traditionally been a local content offering, particularly from radio.
Now that most people run computers with muscular processing power and broadband connections, it's easy to see that video is a formidable new frontier in search. Rivals Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSN are, of course, working on similar applications.
Meanwhile, when it comes to localized content and other lucrative areas of search, there are plenty of other contenders, such as Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL service, Ask Jeeves (NASDAQ:ASKJ), and Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) A9.com, as well as plenty of newer offerings, such as Clusty, Bill Gross' Snap, and Accoona.
Meanwhile, though, Yahoo! is hitting on something big with its traffic monitoring service. Although many of us have resources for such a feature on a rudimentary level, Yahoo!'s service will be more dynamic, culling real-time resources.
Given the propensity for urban gridlock and suburban sprawl in the U.S., and the fact that many people battle serious traffic problems in high-density areas, many users will probably find it useful to monitor traffic conditions for their daily commutes or weekend jaunts. If search is to make our lives easier as we shuffle through essential information, then such a service is essential, given statistics that talk about the quality time away from home that traffic tie-ups cause.
In recent months, it was arguable that a larger, more mature, and more settled Yahoo! than the audacious company that hit the scene 10 years ago was beginning to drop the ball in terms of forging the ways of the Internet. However, these two services show the company is well aware of what it has to do to keep users on its site. As always, stay tuned for the latest bids for your attention from formidable Internet giants and hungry upstarts.
For related Fool coverage, see the following:
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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.
