CES: Yahoo revamps mobile strategy

LAS VEGAS--Yahoo today at CES kicked off a new mobile content strategy revealing a new mobile content application combining, in one downloadable Java engine, elements of its search, news, finance, entertainment, weather and photo sharing applications, all of which have been tweaked for mobile use.

Called Yahoo Go 2.0, the portal app is an extension of a similar initiative last year that served only high-end smartphones. “This one is optimized for the mass-market, though,” said Ojas Rege, senior director of mobile products for Yahoo. “Yahoo is a mass-market company, after all.”

Yahoo stressed that the application and its accompanying features, or widgets, were not just compact versions of their PC equivalent. Rege said Yahoo has invested a lot of time, thought and resources into creating uniquely mobile products. The new search engine, for instance, uses different algorithms as the PC portals and rates information differently. It draws on a database to answer questions or provide basic information on a search term rather than providing a list of links. And the links it does display are only those that link to sites optimized for mobile rendering.

“I search on mobile differently than I do on the PC,” Rege said. “I don’t need all those links. I need short answers. The engine knows I’m not going to research my next car purchase on my mobile phone.”

Yahoo Go will be available as a Beta application for the Yahoo Web site, but the portal has already negotiated several deals with phone makers Nokia, Motorola and Samsung to begin embedding the software in their devices, and it has partnered with 13 Asian and European carriers as well as Rogers Wireless to support the application.