Yahoo steps up to mobile internet

Internet giant Yahoo this week made a raft of announcements at the CES show in Las Vegas aimed at boosting its presence on the mobile net and creating a mobile ecosystem which can compete with Google by attracting developers, publishers and advertisers.

At the show Yahoo launched a new version of its Yahoo Go client featuring an improved user interface designed to simplify the browsing experience, and a new personalised home page which will display updated calendaring appointments, new emails and other features.

The firm also made moves to create a mobile ecosystem for developers, publishers and advertisers. Key to this was the launch of the Yahoo Mobile Developer Platform which will enable third party developers to create widgets that can be accessed through Yahoo Go 3.0. This means they can be made available to hundreds of devices without the need for developers to write code more than once, said the firm.

Finally, Yahoo announced it will be allowing display advertising on its Go client for the first time, a strategy designed to encourage publishers to monetise their services and advertisers to use the platform to reach a greater audience, said Yahoo.

Tony Cripps of analyst Ovum praised Yahoo Go as "one of the better on-device mobile portals" and said the announcements should also make it popular among the developer community.

"Users will have a higher motivation to download and install Go than some of the third party white label solutions," he added. "And in the mobile world, widgets make sense – these applications will go some way to making it easier to access content."

However, Cripps argued that although Go is a necessary stepping stone, in time the mobile internet will be accessed mainly through specialised browser-based environments.