Yahoo! planning Audio Search Engine

Yahoo! planning Audio Search Engine

Yahoo! pulled up a surprise on Google by launching the final version of their Video Search engine before they could. In fact, Yahoo! Video Search searches for videos available on the net while Google’s Beta Video Search is more of a search engine for television shows. Now the search engine company is going another step ahead. Rumors are claiming that the next target for Yahoo! is to develop an Audio Search Engine.

The plan is to index the songs and music available for download on the Internet. And a beta should be out available to the public in the next couple of months. The engine is also expected to extract relevant information from the audio clippings and the songs to make the search more powerful. In addition, they would also be making available songs from competing music selling services, as well as album reviews and band information from their own Yahoo! Music channels.

The company has for now declined to comment on the speculation. Audio and Video form an important part of their future plans to diversify into more fields other than being a search engine. They just recently acquired song outlet MusicMatch for $160 million and are also working another music service in conjunction with rival MusicNet.

Searching such content on the Internet would become a big business in the future as broadband becomes a common commodity. They would definitely love to challenge the market leader Apple targeting their iTunes digital music online store. Apple sells more than a million songs from their online store and it forms a big part of their bottom-line along with the hip music player iPod.

In simple words, Yahoo! wants to retain its position as the preferred place to visit on the Internet by making available each and every possible service through their online identity. If they do not, both Google and MSN are ready to pounce on them with their offerings.