AT&T Chooses Yahoo! for Mobile Search

Remember the Simpsons episode where Ralph gives Lisa a Valentine?: “See it says ‘I choo choo choose you’ and it’s got a picture of a train!” Ralph tells her. Today AT&T Inc. became the Ralph to Yahoo! Mobile’s Lisa when it named Yahoo! the exclusive search provider for most of its handsets (the deal excludes the iPhone, as Apple provides its own interface).

That’s not to say that AT&T is Ralph-like in being on the slow side (far be it), but it’s hoping that different will be a differentiator in the mobile search wars, considering that Google Inc. has an exclusive contract with Sprint-Nextel Corp. and will likely announce a contract with Verizon Wireless in the near future. And it is certainly betting that the Lisa-like Yahoo! (perhaps not the most popular but known for being smart) will prove a wise choice in the quest to monetize search capabilities as more and more location-based handsets come to market.

Yahoo! owns 18 percent of the mobile search market, pre-AT&T.

InformationWeek: AT&T, Yahoo Mobile Search Pact Excludes iPhone

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