Yahoo is beginning testing today on a new feature in its search engine that seems much like Google Notebook, but offers a very different approach to organizing your Web-based research. Dubbed Yahoo SearchPad, at its core, the feature is much like online notebooks before it – a collection of links and clipped research from around the Web.

The differentiator, which will make or break Yahoo SearchPad, is that it relies largely on attention data to automatically collect research for you. Say for example you’re researching a new car. If you’re using Yahoo, SearchPad will automatically appear if it notices that you’re clicking a lot of related links or spending lots of time on pages about cars.

How it Works

Once Yahoo notices you’re doing research, a “Take Notes” option will appear, right in the search pages. Follow the option and you’ll enter SearchPad, where, as opposed to a blank canvas, you’ll already see all of the research you’ve conducted on the given topic that Yahoo has identified. You don’t need an account – you can keep SearchPad open, add to it, and when you’re done, either print it or save it to your Yahoo account.







SearchPad itself is a fairly intuitive notebook program – in addition to the automatic additions based on attention data, you can manually insert items, re-order them through drag and drop, and add annotations. Another very cool feature is that if you paste something into your SearchPad but don’t attribute it, Yahoo will figure out where the content came from by searching the Web. This makes it possible to use SearchPad even if Yahoo isn’t your primary search engine.







Competition

The timing of this launch is interesting, given Google Notebook just recently shutdown. I spoke with Tom Chi, Product Manager of Yahoo Search, to figure out where he thinks SearchPad can succeed where Google Notebook failed. He thinks the reason Notebook failed is because it went down the same path as every other online notebook provider, which is to make you change your underlying search behavior, do things like install a bookmarklet, or even download a separate application. With Yahoo leveraging tons of search data, he believes their approach is better – and I tend to agree.

A Boon to Yahoo Search?

Yahoo has been doing their homework when it comes to search. Chi says the idea for SearchPad arose out of going to regular users' homes and watching how they use the Web. Today, the service is launching to a very limited random subset of users, and Yahoo will observe how people use SearchPad. From there, a decision as to what tweaks are needed and when the service can be rolled out to more users will be made.

While SearchPad certainly seems like an advancement in the Web research space, don’t expect it to be the feature that tilts the search war in Yahoo’s favor. After all, the bulk of queries on the Web are navigational and fact-based, which is not what SearchPad addresses. But there are certainly a lot of use-cases for SearchPad, and the fact that it will work on Yahoo and beyond is a big plus.

Because of the phased rollout of SearchPad, it’ll be months before we know what kind of impact it’s having, and how well it actually works. If you happen to have it turned on, let us know what you think in the comments.

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