By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc
Yahoo said in a blog post on Wednesday that it was testing a new tool to help people better organize the bounty of information that crops up while doing research on the Web.
Search Pad is similar in concept to Google Notebook — a product the Web-search leader opted to halt development on last month.
But the fact that Google threw in the towel on a product does not mean Yahoo is wasting its time, say some analysts. The companies’ differing financial and competitive positions mean what is right for one might not make sense for the other.
Google, which controls roughly 63 percent of the U.S. search market, is taking a hard look at its operating expenses to preserve its operating margin in a slowing economy, including the slew of non-essential projects it traditionally supported.
Yahoo, whose 2008 revenue rose 3 percent to $7.2 billion, is in dire need of a new growth strategy, say analysts.
Investors might be more tolerant of projects that pressure profit margins at Yahoo if there is a chance of a payoff, said Sandeep Aggarwal an analyst at Collins Stewart, speaking in general terms and not of Search Pad specifically.