Yahoo! scored a big contract in Europe, as it has signed an agreement with Telefónica España — Spain’s largest operator network — to power the mobile Internet search experience and sponsored search advertising on Telefónica’s emocion portal. The new deal builds on top of the earlier partnership deal Yahoo had with O2 Germany that was launched in November of last year; as well as the larger agreement announced in October 2007 to provide consumers with Yahoo! as the primary search service on Telefonica’s mobile portals in 15 European and Latin American countries.
Yahoo! on its end will provide Telefónica’s users with relevant information on various topics, including news, financial information, weather, Flickr photos, travel information, and of course the good ol’ search results. The service is designed to return results grouped around the user’s intent, apparently making it faster for users to get information they need. For instance, when you search for a sports team, Yahoo! will not only show a link to the team’s website, but also latest scores, team profiles, related news and images. In other example, if you’re searching for a movie, you’ll get show times at local cinemas, reviews, news articles and other relevant information.
Alongside actual results, there will be sponsored links which will pay for the service. Actually, you’ll also pay for additional data usage if you’re not on some unlimited data plan, but that’s another story…