Yahoo! Inc has put a rough date window on the launch of its long-anticipated upgrade to its Search Marketing service, its search-oriented advertising platform that competes with Google Inc's AdWords platform.

It will begin to roll out country by country in the third quarter, Yahoo said. Key among the upgrades will be geographic targeting and open APIs that will enable advertisers to tie the advertising services into their own systems.

While Yahoo, via its acquisition of Overture a few years back, arguably invented the search-based advertising market, recently it has been Google that has been grabbing most of the market share and revenue growth.

Find out more about Yahoo's advertising program upgrade at http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=AD9790B7-611C-4FA7-910C-BEF9AE361056.