Yahoo opens mobile Web platform
By Erina Lin, Thursday 10 January 2008 at 21:01 :: World Digital Media Trends :: #1085 :: rss
Yahoo is hoping to beat Google and other rivals on the mobile phone. It announced the launch of its mobile platform Monday, which allows outside programmers to develop new applications for mobile Web pages.
Yahoo hopes the mini-applications, known as widgets, will attract more users, and then bring in more ad revenues for the company.
The Internet company also unveiled a redesigned home page for mobile. This new page includes more content and allows readers to highlight the materials they like.
It also released an upgrade of the Go software, which facilitates mobile Web surfing and enables mobiles to show ads with graphics.
Jerry Yang, Yahoo co-founder and current chief executive, discussed the changes at the International Consumer Electronics Show Monday, saying that Yahoo is committed to create the best and richest mobile experience for users.
Yahoo believes its Go software, introduced two years ago, gave it an early advantage in a fierce battle to deliver advertising and online services to the three billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide. But Google is taking the lead in recruiting programmers for application development for the mobile platform.
Google began wooing outside programmers two months ago with its mobile software package Android, which is expected to hit the market in the later half of this year.
Yahoo is confident that more programmers will be interested in working for its mobile platform because it has the potential to reach billions of phones. Google's software is expected to be installed on a few million phones initially, Media Info Center reported.
Besides the mobile platform, Yang said Yahoo is also planning to add more bells and whistles to its free e-mail service later this year.
Yahoo was the Internet powerhouse in the mid and late 90’s, but has been eclipsed in recent years due to mostly the emergence of online search monster Google, and also some hotshots like Facebook and MySpace.
Since Yang became CEO, he has promised to shake things up, but investors so far are not quite impressed by the results - Yahoo's stock price has plummeted by 18 percent while Google’s has surged by over 20 percent, not to mention Google has a market value of $203 billion versus Yahoo's $31 billion.
Unless Yahoo can snap out of its funk later this year, some analysts suspect Yahoo’s management will face pressure to sell the company.
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