Yahoo! announces SearchScan while searching for next act

You can expect louder product announcements from Yahoo! after the . Jerry Yang and Co. want to get the word out in a hurry about new features and services to boost the stock, quench shareholder anger and convince everyone that faith in its future is justified.

Releasing the beta of SearchScan may help. Yahoo is using McAfee’s SiteAdvisor to alert users of any potential for spam, viruses or other malware. The feature appears in the upper right hand corner of your Yahoo! search results - right under the company logo - and is active by default.

There is a tiny bit of boilerplate to consider: “SearchScanBETA displays McAfee alerts optimal for the Yahoo! search user and does not include all McAfee SiteAdvisor red ratings.” Critics will probably say it offers no more value than the security dialog boxes that pop up in Microsoft Vista (irony of ironies, huh?) and should have been one of the first features added since the company announced it was blazing its own search technology trail in early 2004. But it can also be argued that any amount of help for the consumer to keep their drives nice and clean should be noted and appreciated.

It’s interesting that some of the comments to Yang’s Yodel Anecdotal blog from those who supported the decision to turn down the Microsoft takeover bid offered suggestions on turning the company around, and focusing on search - the core business - was high on their lists.