As part of the alliance:
- Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as “powered by Ovi.”
- Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services branded as “Ovi Mail / Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo!”
- Nokia and Yahoo! plan to work on ID federation between their services, beginning by making it easy for people to use their Ovi user IDs across select Yahoo! properties to easily access  the online content and services they need.

“Delivering great user experiences — both online and on your mobile – is what this alliance is all about,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia. “We’re enabling millions of Yahoo! customers in key markets including North America to discover the unique capabilities that Ovi Maps brings. Similarly, Yahoo!’s online expertise will bring exciting mail and messaging enhancements to millions of Ovi Mail customers across almost every country around the world, many of whom will have their first Internet experience on their mobile.”

“What a combination,” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo!. “We’re excited to expand the reach of our best-in-class Mail and Messenger services, bringing personalized experiences to more people across the mobile web, particularly in emerging markets where we are seeding the next generation of Yahoo! users. At the same time, we believe Nokia’s strength and continued investment in maps and navigation will greatly enhance our existing products, enabling us to focus on areas that are core to our business.”

Together, Yahoo! and Nokia will continue to deliver compelling Internet experiences that address the core needs of consumers, developers, operators and advertisers. The companies will utilize their respective global distribution advantages and brand recognition across consumer audiences.

Select, co-branded service offerings are expected to become available from the second half of 2010, with global availability expected in 2011.

Nokia is the world’s largest mobile device manufacturer, with hundreds of millions of devices sold each year and a leader in digital mapping, with continuing investment and innovation focused on developing comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, now covering 77 countries in 46 languages. With more than 600 million users of Yahoo!-branded sites per month, Yahoo! is a global Internet powerhouse, a one-stop web destination enabling consumers to enjoy their online life anywhere and everywhere – all customized for their interests. As one of the leading Internet brands, Yahoo! is focused on growing its audience by providing seamless web experiences across PC and mobile devices.

“Yahoo! is defining the next era of the Internet, search, and mobile, by demonstrating what’s possible when you leverage innovative design and technical prowess to engage people with personally relevant experiences,” said David Ko, senior vice president of Yahoo!’s Audience, Mobile, and Local businesses. “We’re growing our mobile audience globally by providing people with search experiences that have simple input and discovery methods, and advertisers with a highly engaged mobile audience.”

Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search iPhone App

Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search makes search even easier, without typing keywords or thinking about search terms. You simply draw a boundary on your phone’s map to discover local businesses within that location. Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search delivers robust local content without people needing to know the neighborhood. Initially available for restaurant searches in the U.S., Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search will launch additional local categories on an ongoing basis and extend to international markets in the near future.

Key features include:

* Sketch and Discover: Use a finger to draw a circle, line, or any shape to get a bird’s eye view of what’s nearby in a specific area or on a specific street.
* Location Awareness: Defaults to a person’s current location, remembers previous locations, and allows people to search for a specific city or an area of interest.
* Robust Local Content: Filter restaurant results by cuisine, ambiance, and star rating. Click on restaurants to read reviews, browse photos, get directions, or make a phone call — all directly within the app.
* Shake to Clear: Shake the device or click on the Sketch icon to start a new Sketch-a-Search.

Yahoo! Search iPhone App

Maximized for speed, the Yahoo! Search iPhone app revolves around an innovative interface that delivers contextually relevant results quickly and efficiently. A bevy of features — tightly embedded maps, localized query suggestions that display as you type, intelligent search history, voice search, and rich content and information from Yahoo! and other sources that appear directly in the results — creates an optimal experience for finding exactly what you need. The Yahoo! Search iPhone app is available in 22 markets across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and will continue to roll out to additional locations.

Key features include:

* Fast Results: Get results, detailed summaries at a glance, and instant, local suggestions that display as you type with Yahoo! Search Assist.
* Local Shortcuts: Refine results based on your location with embedded maps and location-aware technology. Then call a business or get directions with a single click, all without leaving the results. (Currently available only in the U.S.)
* Rich Local Content: View photos, ratings, phone numbers, and more from Yahoo! Local, Yelp, and Citysearch.
* Rich Results: Get the answers you’re looking for — not a list of meaningless links — with search results that are infused with specific, helpful information from Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Movies, and other providers.
* Integrated Voice Search: Don’t type — just speak your query, making input easy and fast.
* Intelligent Search History: Get quick access to recent searches and local businesses.
* Shake to Clear: Shake the device to start a new query.

“This breakthrough search alliance means Yahoo! can focus even more on our own innovative search experience,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “Yahoo! gets to do what we do best: combine our science and technology with compelling content to build personally relevant online experiences for our users and customers.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer concurred with Bartz’s assessment. “Although we are just at the beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone,” Ballmer said. “I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo! will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers.”

Consumer Search Experience

Under terms of the agreement, which was announced in late July 2009, Microsoft will provide Yahoo! with the same search result listings available through Bing, and Yahoo! will innovate around those listings by integrating rich Yahoo! content, enhanced listings with conveniently organized information about key topics, and tools to tailor the experience for Yahoo! users.

Yahoo! will focus on providing a compelling and innovative search experience that allows people to find and explore the things, people and sites that matter most to them. While Microsoft will provide the underlying platform, both companies will continue to create different, compelling and evolving experiences, competing for audience, engagement and clicks.

Transition Timeline

Yahoo! and Microsoft will work with advertisers, publishers and developers on a customized plan designed to make the transition as efficient and seamless as possible. Both companies will begin working closely with most partners well in advance of their planned transition to the Microsoft platform and will communicate important information to partners about the transition periodically via phone, email, webinars and a newly created website at www.searchalliance.com.

The companies will begin the transition of algorithmic search and have set a goal of completing that effort in at least the United States by the end of 2010. The companies also hope to make significant progress transitioning U.S. advertisers and publishers prior to the 2010 holiday season, but may wait until 2011 if they determine that the transition will be more effective after the holiday season. All global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.

Customer Relationships

Once the transition is in place, Yahoo! and Microsoft will each represent and provide customer support to different advertiser segments. Yahoo!’s sales team will exclusively represent and support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients. Microsoft will represent and support self-service advertisers.

Regulatory Summary

Although the transaction previously was cleared by regulators in Australia, Brazil and Canada, the terms of the agreement required clearance by U.S. and European regulators before it could commence. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Yahoo! continue to work with regulators in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to ensure that they have all relevant information necessary to evaluate the transaction before the deal commences in those specific jurisdictions.

“Consumers are in love with their televisions, watching more TV, and demanding Internet connectivity to further enhance their viewing experience,” said Arlo Rose, senior director of Yahoo! Connected TV. “Yahoo! is leading the connected TV market by bringing a rich variety of Internet content and services to the living room — incorporating video on demand, social networks, games, online shopping, and more — making it easy for consumers to personalize their TV viewing experience.”

New Partnerships To Expand Distribution for the Yahoo! Widget Engine

Building on the company’s existing distribution partnerships with Sony®, LG® Electronics, VIZIO® and Samsung® across North America and Europe, Yahoo! is expanding the availability of the TV Widget experience globally by embedding the Yahoo! Widget Engine in an even greater number of television models and a variety of new consumer electronics devices. New partnerships and noteworthy developments include:

* VIZIO’s XVT Series Connected HDTVs with VIZIO Internet Apps incorporate the Yahoo! Widget Engine and will be available at retailers throughout the U.S. in Q1. Taking unique advantage of the Yahoo! Widget Engine, VIZIO’s Connected HDTVs provide consumers with unprecedented choice, convenience, and control of an ever-increasing array of Internet content and services, as well as intuitive and simple access to the TVs’ settings through the Widget dock.

Hisense International Co, Ltd., a world leading provider of flat panel TVs, household appliances, and mobile communications, announced a partnership with global Internet brand Yahoo!® Inc. to integrate the Yahoo! Widget Engine into Hisense Internet-Connected TVs that will ship across the U.S. and Europe.

* ViewSonic will provide customers with an interactive, connected TV experience via the ViewSonic VMP80 media player. Powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine, the ViewSonic VMP80 media player will enable current HDTV owners to view movies, TV shows, Web videos, and photos; and to go shopping, play games, and more with TV Widgets. The VMP80 media player will ship in Q1 2010 for an estimated MSRP of US$159.
* MIPS Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer, home networking, wireless, communications, and business applications, today announced plans to develop an optimized Yahoo! Widget Engine for MIPS-Based™ digital home devices. MIPS will develop an optimized reference platform running the Yahoo! Widget Engine for digital TV and set-top box applications. Leveraging this reference implementation, MIPS® licensees will be able to quickly develop devices incorporating Yahoo! TV Widgets.
* Sigma Designs announced plans to support the Yahoo! Widget Engine on its media processors, which will enable manufacturers to easily support Yahoo! Connected TV in a wide array of consumer electronic devices, including Blu-ray players, network players, AV receivers, and cable/IPTV set-top boxes.

WDK Now Widely Available for Developers and Publishers; Offering Instant Scalability

With thousands of developers in the process of creating TV Widgets, and to further the company’s open strategy in this space, Yahoo! is making its Widget Developer Kit (WDK) broadly available for developers and publishers who want to extend their brand, services, and content to a mass market.

Beginning today, anyone can download the WDK and quickly create, deploy and monetize exciting and engaging TV Widget experiences. Leveraging a rich set of application programming interfaces (APIs), developers can write widgets using simple JavaScript and XML, producing rich Internet applications to deliver dynamic content to millions of television sets and other consumer electronic devices globally.

For more information on the WDK and to begin developing TV Widgets, visit: http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/developer

Slate of New TV Widget Providers Bring Thousands of Content Sources to Consumers

The Yahoo! Widget Gallery continues to expand, enabling consumers to access their favorite TV shows on Amazon® Video on Demand, play music on Pandora®, check sports scores on USA Today®, shop on eBay®, play games, or catch up with friends on Twitter™ and Facebook®, all while watching TV. Joining leading consumer brands like CBS®, Showtime® and Blockbuster®, a sample of recently introduced Widgets will provide consumers access to a personalized selection of music, video, news and information.

* CNBC: The CNBC TV Widget enables viewers to interact with CNBC’s real-time stock quotes direct from the NYSE and NASDAQ, with real-time watch lists to track favorite stocks and with other key analytics, all while still watching TV.
* NBC.com: Users can view NBC’s show schedule and full-screen photo galleries, and catch up on favorite shows with up-to-date recaps, cast bios, and more.
* Napster: Subscribers can browse, search, preview, and listen to Napster’s entire catalog of music on-demand, as well as enjoy custom radio stations, playlists, and Billboard charts.
* RadioTime: Create your personal selection of music from up to 100,000 radio stations.
* Sky News TV: Delivers breaking news by text and images to users’ TV sets. It includes seven categories of news: top stories, U.K. news, sports, business, world news, showbiz news, and politics.
* Dailymotion: Access one of largest Web video sites in the world through your TV.
* The Weather Channel: Enables consumers to stay up to date with the current conditions, the five-day forecast, and access regional radar, all accessible in a simple interface with the ability to look up and save multiple locations.
* Betfair: The world’s biggest betting community provides sports enthusiasts with an online entertainment experience to enhance their sports television watching in the U.K.
* My-Cast Weather: Provides animated Nexrad radar, hourly to seven-day forecasts, StormWatch, cloud information and more across the United States.

Yahoo! has also worked with leading video, data and photo aggregators to provide consumers access to their vast libraries of thousands of content sources.

* FrameChannel: Provides consumers with over 1,000 content channels from FrameChannel’s collection of leading photosharing, social networking and content partners, including BBC News, People.com, EW Picks, Deutsche Welle, Crave, Digg.com, Facebook, Twitter and much more. Browse and configure hundreds of channels to create your personalized TV Widget.
* Brightcove: The Leading online video platform for publishing and distributing video on the Web now makes it easy for media companies and marketers to create immersive, branded video experiences for Internet-connected televisions. Some of the TV Widgets that consumers can expect shortly include: Slate V, This Old House, AllYou.com, My Home Ideas, My Recipes, Southern Living, Real Simple, Coastal Living, Sunset, Cooking Light, Wine Spectator, TheStreet.com, The Hollywood Reporter and Cars.com.
* Zinc: Enables users to enjoy high-quality Internet video, providing a simple and consistent way to browse more than 100,000 professionally produced videos from hundreds of different websites, including Amazon, Netflix, those of major networks, and more.
* 1Cast: This personalized video service delivers up-to-the-minute news video from leading programmers and broadcasters across the Web.

For example, someone could post “I just dropped off a coat from my closet at a homeless shelter, You In?” or “I paid the toll fee for the car behind me, You In?” The message will appear in that person’s Yahoo! status; can be shared via social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace; and will be displayed on an interactive global map on the campaign’s website at kindness.yahoo.com.

“We believe that one small act of kindness can ignite a ripple of generosity and we hope to inspire the Yahoo! community to create a wave of goodwill around the world,” said Meg Garlinghouse, senior director of Yahoo! for Good. “Update your status to share what you’re doing to spread holiday joy and inspire others to also pay it forward.”

Yahoo! jump-started the program by providing early participants $100 to help set-off the global ripple of generosity. Yahoo! will use its network of services and its global online presence to help amplify and share these generous ideas to its vast community. Additionally, Yahoo! will conduct its own acts of kindness inspired by people’s status updates.

“If social networks and the Web can market products, why can’t they be used to market kindness and generosity? It’s exciting to see Yahoo! get behind a project that can inspire people to do good,” said Dan Shapley, senior editor of The Daily Green.com.

“Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010.”