Connexion by Boeing and Yahoo apparently were compelled to issue a press release over the addition of a small rectangle to Connexion's portal page: When you pay up to $35 for a flight to use Connexion by Boeing's airplane-to-satellite-to-ground broadband Internet service, a Yahoo search box will apparently appear on the portal page. Not that you have to use it. Not, according to the best search engine watching news, are you likely to use it.
In the annals of press releases, this one goes down quite well as two multi-billion dollar firms with real businesses make hay over a white rectangle that most people will ignore, and, at best, a few thousand people a year might use once or twice.
You know, it may be interesting why Yahoo! may have chosen to issue a press release. Now, this may only be a small rectangle. But it is possible Yahoo is signalling a broader entry into the WiFi space. They clearly are not new to the ISP space; SBC Yahoo DSL is quite popular already.
I wonder- is Yahoo under exclusive contract with SBC and SBC FreedomLink? Maybe they will start partnering with other WISPs also? At least Connexion may be added to SBC Freedomlink's roaming network, thereby expanding SBC-Yahoo customers' network access to inflight WiFi.
Just a thought.