Back in January, as part of their larger relationship, Yahoo! and AT&T announced that Yahoo!’s mobile oneSearch would be featured on AT&T’s “deck.” Now the deal is being formally launched. AT&T is currently the largest US carrier, with 70 million customers.
A wrinkle in the deal is that AT&T’s YellowPages.com will provide all the local results. That’s a boost for YellowPages.com, which has been pushing mobile (especially its iPhone app) pretty aggressively.
It’s a compromise for Yahoo!, which wants the distribution and potential monetization opportunity from access to AT&T’s customer base. But it doesn’t get to showcase its local results, which are generally better than those on YellowPages.com.
Local business and entertainment search are among the most valued categories in mobile (ahead of them are maps & directions). And those lookups represent immediate leads for advertisers.
There’s more discussion in a post over at Local Mobile Search.
