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By Stefanie Olsen, 6 May 2005 10:05

NEWS Yahoo! is developing a search engine to pinpoint downloadable songs and music data across the internet, it has emerged.

The company plans to introduce the music search engine in the next couple of months, according to a source familiar with the service. The specialty engine will let people search for an artist's name, for example, and retrieve all available songs from other music services, as well as album reviews and band information from Yahoo! Music.

Jeff Karnes, Yahoo!'s director of media search, declined to comment on the development.

Yahoo! has invested heavily in music services, and considers audio and video to be cornerstones of the company's future. In addition to buying song outlet MusicMatch for $160m, Yahoo! is working on another music service in conjunction with rival MusicNet. The company has also started to streamline its music and multimedia properties over the past few months, changing the name of its Launch site to Yahoo! Music and consolidating its entertainment businesses in an office near Hollywood.

Search technology is considered the key to navigating the internet's growing music and video collections, as well as the web itself. Yahoo! is not only developing media and online communities to lure visitors, it is attempting to use its media-search engines to connect with web surfers outside the Yahoo! network, and hoping to expand its audience and multibillion-dollar search-advertising business.

Gary Stein, an analyst at Jupiter Research, said: "It makes sense because Yahoo!'s got access to all this music to begin with. Music needs better search and by looking at the structured data of music - title, genre, etc. - they could provide a better experience."

The company is also investing in video search - pushing its video search engine out of its test phase, this week, and signing partnerships with several TV programmers, including Bloomberg, MTV and The Discovery Channel, to make their content searchable online.

Yahoo!'s search technology group has been developing the audio search engine for months, according to a source. The music engine will draw on Yahoo!'s search-based ad service to include related music advertisements in search results, the source added.

Yahoo!'s entry into the digital-music search market could turn the heat up on rivals, putting it in direct competition with services such as Singingfish, GoFish and MP3.com. Such services let people find music reviews and related information, along with links to legal download stores and peer-to-peer networks.

Still, some analysts say that, apart from its ambitions to attract regular visitors, Yahoo! has yet to fully formulate its music strategy.

Mike McGuire, research director at GartnerG2, said: "I haven't seen Yahoo!'s music strategy take much shape yet, but what's undeniable is the number of visitors they have."

"There are a large number of communities built up outside of Yahoo!. And if Yahoo! can turn to those and say we have a home for you, that becomes a powerful force in the music industry," McGuire said. "Does it replace an iTunes or Napster? I don't know at this point."

Yahoo!'s Karnes, who announced the launch of Yahoo! Video Search this week, said that the search team works closely with the entertainment group. "We do have integration with Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! TV, etc," he said.

"We're the first stop for folks on the internet."

Stefanie Olsen writes for CNET News.com