Yahoo!'s new browser product- Yahoo! Axis

Earlier this evening Yahoo! launched an interesting browser product named theAxis. There are tons of early reviews already out. Quite a few of them are positive. Here are some reviews from Ars, The Verge, Engadget and Gizmodo. I gave it a spin on my wife's iPhone 4S and here are my impressions.Yahoo!'s Identity CrisisYahoo! like RIM, HP, and Nokia has been hit especially hard by the exponential popularity of Apple, Google and Facebook. Yahoo! has had its own share of management woes with the Scott Thompson's resume and subsequent resignation. But in the more longer term, Yahoo! has stagnated and suffered an identity crisis. Amidst declining revenues and a bunch of missteps, Yahoo! is no longer the internet trailblazer it once was. The rise and fall of Yahoo! merits its own post someday.The browser warsThe browser wars are being fought between the rapidly growing Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and incumbent leader Internet Explorer. Of the three, Google Chrome seems to be slowly but steadily breaking away from the pack. Chrome has also given Google an ability to closely integrate the web browser and web search. Google has fielded a bunch of its search innovations in Chrome and people have lapped it up. In this light, the browser war is shaping to reflect a bigger battle, the search engine wars.Microsoft's IE and Bing and Yahoo! are both on the losing side of the search and browser battle. Something that prompted the two companies to align their strategies with Microsoft Bing powering Yahoo! Search. While this relationship has helped Bing gain a bigger marketshare in comparison to Google, it hasn't brought down Google's share as anticipated. Enter Yahoo! Axis.The iOS ExperienceYahoo! Axis is really a more visual take on the browser experience. It is currently available as an app for the iPhone and iPad. It is also available as a plugin for Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and IE.  I gave it a shot on an iPhone 4S.The iOS experience is interesting to say the least. It is definitely a new take on the search front. The app has a browser like feel but is punctuated by a large search bar on top of the screen. The browser address bar doubles duty as a search bar and as you type a search topic, it immediately starts showing relevant sites in the middle of the screen. As the search term gets closer to completion, you are led to the first search result- this eliminates the step of user selecting the result. Call it Yahoo!'s version of Google's "I am feeling lucky". Additional search results can be seen by scrolling to the right. The traditional list view of search results is available on the upper half of the screen.In practice, I found it to be interesting initially but then a tad painful having to see the content of the actual website instead of a summary of links I am used to. Maybe it is a force of habit. Or maybe I prefer list like results to a visual representation. After a few searches, I felt like going back to my older Google Search. Yahoo! Axis leverages the Bing search engine to return results. If you don't like Bing or find it occasionally lacking (as I do), that will further affect your experience.I have read in reviews that the app looks really good on the iPad- something I don't have a chance to experience since I don't own one. In addition, I have my own doubts on how the visual experience will appear under challenging network conditions and low battery situations. Only time and experience will tell.The Browser Plugin Experience on a MacI wanted to give the browser plug-in  a fair shot to see how it did the syncing but an early vulnerability prevented me from installing it on my preferred browser- Chrome. I installed it on Safari instead for the purpose of this post. The browser plugin is a small search bar at the bottom of the browser. It replicates the search interface as seen in the iPhone. A home button takes you to options like Read it Later, Continue from Device My Favorites. If signed in to your Yahoo! account, these items are available across all browsers and devices supporting the feature.The browser plugin is nothing new for people who use Chrome across multiple devices (laptops, desktops, Android ICS devices) or Firefox Sync. The Read it Later feature is also available on ICS tablets in addition to being supported via third-party tools like Readability, Instapaper and Pocket. The visual search element is nice for things which are image friendly. For everything else, the traditional link driven results work much better for me.I also found the browser plugin search bar to be obtrusive on the screen, small as it is. It would be nice to have it movable across the browser screen to wherever I feel comfortable. As I type this post on Safari, I find the search bar blocking whatever I type close to it.SummaryI have only spent an hour or so with Axis. While I have my issues with it, I definitely think Yahoo! is back to innovating which is a great first step. Axis will appeal to some folks for sure but whether it gains critical mass and marketshare remains to be seen. Aligning itself with iOS to start with is a smart move given that Chrome on Android is a similar if not a better experience for Android users. Time will tell if Axis helps Yahoo! get back to relevance.