Yahoo Axis Launch Drives Search Engine Into Mobile Web Market
Yahoo has unveiled Axis, a new browser tool designed to enhance its search, in a move to drive itself into the mobile Web market.
Axis will be available as an app for Apple mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad, as well as on desktops as an add-on to browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
Ethan Batraski, Yahoo special project director, has confirmed on the company's search blog that it will "set out to completely re-think and re-design how users search and browse the Web."
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A search will reveal a thumbnail images of web page results instead of listing links like Google currently does.
Reviews thus far have been on the large positive. CNET's Rafe Needleman has said, "Mobile is where the action is, so it makes sense that Yahoo threw the bulk of its development love into the tablet and smartphone versions."
He added, "On the iPad, Axis is simply a great browser. The integrated search feature is intuitive, and being able to move through search results without having to go back to search makes sense. After only a few minutes using it I thought, Why hasn't Google done this yet? It's that good."
Search users on mobile devices can flick between a Web page and their previous search results, and can also bookmark pages easily, as well as integrate the app with Pinterest.
On a desktop, Axis is shown as a small search box in the bottom left of the browser window.
At the end of the first quarter of 2012 statistics by Experian Hitwise showed that Google accounted for 64 percent of the search engine market. Yahoo accounted for 16 percent, and Bing completed the big three search engines with 14 percent of the market.
