Yahoo has announced that it will start testing a new audio search feature, which will sieve through millions of songs offered by Internet music services such as Napster, Rhapsody and iTunes. Yahoo's service weighs into a competitive Internet market where audio-file search programs are offered by companies such as America On Line and Google, according to industry experts.

Yahoo Audio Search complements music services, such as Yahoo Music Unlimited and other third-party services by providing consumers access to an extensive array of other audio-related content such as podcasts, spoken word and artist Web sites, John Thrall, head of multi-media search engineering at Yahoo, said in a statement.

The ‘Yahoo Audio Search’ index includes the Silicon Valley Company’s own content along with music from a list of website partners such as eMusic, GarageBand.com, Napster and Rhapsody. The new mechanism is linked to Yahoo's recently released video search system, allowing people to find sound to complement images, according to the company.

The audio search provides access to audio interviews and other audio-related information, including music videos, album reviews and artist images and Web sites, according to the company.

By further enhancing the search experience with personalization tools, Yahoo is delivering an innovative model for consumers to use the web to find and listen to audio files of their choice, said Su Li Walker, an analyst with Yankee Group.

By offering a single search path across multiple content sources, Yahoo has made it easier for consumers to find podcasts, music or other audio files in one place, Su Li Walker, an analyst with Yankee Group, said.

With Yahoo Audio Search, users have a starting point for finding all audio-related content available on the Web making it easy for users to find, use, share and expand their knowledge of audio-related content, Thrall said.

In addition, Yahoo Audio Search enables independent publishers to submit content to the index through Media Really Simple Syndication (Media RSS), providing users with open access to original and timely audio content, according to the company.

Yahoo announced that it will provide Internets free daily news clips from the American CNN and ABC television networks starting in September. A "beta" version of the audio search software was made available by Yahoo at http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com.

With Yahoo Audio Search, users have a starting point for finding all audio-related content available on the Web, said John Thrall, head of multi-media engineering at Yahoo Search.

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