Yahoo gauges interest in hybrid search advertising
Technology giant Yahoo is investigating a new breed of hybrid online advertising which it hopes will give its flagging search functionality a boost.
Yahoo Search Direct marries search and display advertising by predicting the end of a search query as it is being typed alongside search results.
In a pop up box the firm will look to display content that it thinks the user might be looking for, opening up opportunity to tie up with advertisers for sponsored content.
This could include graphical and video ads appearing within search results, a first for the industry which has hitherto been restricted to text ads.
Yahoo hopes to begin introducing the new features in the coming months as it struggles to retain second slot against Google amidst fierce competition from Bing.