Like they say, better late than never. A good half a yafter Google launched interactive prediction based search feedback service Instant, Yahoo India just announced that it will launch its own version of Instant dubbed Search Direct. Don't hold your breath yet, because the service will not be available till the second half of 2011. Just like Google's Instant, Yahoo's Search Direct predicts search results as you type in the keywords into the search bar. The announcement comes a week after Yahoo launched Search Direct in U.S. in the beta stage.
"The new search engine predicts search result as fast as a person types - character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond mere blue links," said Prabhakar Raghavan, chief scientist, senior vice-president and head of Yahoo Labs. Despite competition from Google, Yahoo reaches out to 30 million unique users per month in India, which is about 74 percent of the Indian Internet audience. Loyal Yahoo users therefore finally get one of Google's most innovative features on the search engine of their choice.