The Dash Electronics booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will have a dash of Yahoo in its product, thanks to their partnership on local search.
Through the wonders of GPS and the power of a wireless Internet connection, Dash will bring Yahoo Local search results to drivers using its service.
Instead of toting along a copy of the local yellow pages, and stopping to flip through, the Dash Express device will lookup a search term entered by a driver, present the results, and guide the driver to the selected choice.
Dash said in a statement its product would be a first in the GPS industry.
GPS systems are very useful for getting someone to a known destination; Dash and Yahoo would go this one better by helping a driver decide on a destination too.
As an early effort, its success will depend on Dash’s adoption by drivers.
Being the first Internet-connected GPS device differentiates them from competitors like Garmin and Magellan, and the Yahoo deal gives them a recognized brand name in association.
We have written many times about the local search market, one that offers search advertising companies a multi-billion dollar market to target.
Having the Yahoo brand present in one more place helps to reinforce the name and potentially retain users for its desktop and mobile search services too.
To increase the number of drivers exposed to Yahoo through Dash, the GPS maker probably needs a competitive price to offset the broader selection and greater brand recognition of existing GPS firms.
If they have sufficient quantities of the product, perhaps Dash could try to pull off a fleet deal with a car rental company, and gain exposure to the business travel market that way.
The rental company could tuck a Yahoo Search Marketing flyer into the rental agreement documents, and maybe a few of those gain the interest of a businessperson for some future ad sales.
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
