Yahoo Fires Up

Yahoo Inc. introduced a newly minted Yahoo Search, as the operator of the Internet's No. 2 search engine once again tries to gain ground on leader Google Inc.
The most significant of the new Yahoo Search wrinkles is Yahoo's embrace of "universal search," a results-blending concept that has caught on at the other top search engines.
Universal search, loosely defined, is when search-engine results incorporate a broader array of potential sources, such as videos or pages of books from online libraries, as well as data created by the search engine itself.
The changes come as Google continues to dominate the Internet-search market in terms of the number of people using its search engine and sales of advertising alongside search results.
In August, the number of times Google's search engine was used in the U.S. jumped by one-third from a year earlier to encompass 53.6% of all U.S. searches, according to Nielsen Co. Yahoo's search engine ended August with a 20% share, on 9% annual growth in searches.
"Obviously, we have our eye on being No. 1 in search," Vish Makhijani, Yahoo senior vice president and general manager, said. "We'll chip away. This was the first step. We'll take shots, take chances."
The goal is to create a unique and valuable data pool that keeps customers and advertisers coming back for more.
Google was the first major Internet search engine to adopt universal search, and its results routinely now include data culled from a larger number of Google Web properties. Microsoft Corp. and IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com search engine have adopted the universal-search concept recently with varying results.
At Yahoo, universal search means Yahoo's search-engine results now include relevant photos from its Flickr photo-sharing site, events posted at its Upcoming.org and material from Yahoo Answers, where questions are posted for anyone to answer, among other new Yahoo-generated sources.
Videos from YouTube, which Google owns, are now part of the Yahoo search-results mix.
Yahoo's search engine also has a new search assistant, which tries to pick up signs that someone's having trouble deciding how to phrase a search, and makes suggestions