Yahoo Expands Mobile Portfolio

Yahoo expanded its mobile offerings on Thursday by allowing users to send short text messages to obtain information on a variety of subjects including sports, weather and stocks. For example, sending a text message like "Pizza 94025" will find you pizza parlors within that zip code.

"Though it may seem like a step backwards from the rich mobile-web based search that Yahoo! Mobile already has, it's actually just another -- and one could argue faster -- way to access the same data," Russell Beattie of Mobile Yahoo wrote in the Yahoo Search Blog on Thursday.

As well as the SMS service, Yahoo also announced broader mobile Web capability by supporting the WAP protocol. This means any WAP enabled phone could receive content, whereas previously only devices capable of displaying HTML could be used with the service.

The Yahoo SMS service will work on Cingular, Sprint and Verizon, while the Web-based service is available to Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile customers.

Yahoo rival Google has offered SMS based searches since late last year. The two search giants are locked in a close battle for internet search supremacy, and each company in recent months has escalated their launches of new products and services in an effort to one-up each other.

Beattie says it is time for services like this to make it to the U.S.; some of the same services have been available in Europe for years. "It's not like the U.S. is in a mobile backwater any more," he argued.

"The good thing is thanks to the combined marketing powers of the national carriers and shows like American Idol, most American cellular customers are at least aware of SMS text messaging now."