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Wireless

by Carlo Longino

Fri, Jan 6th 2006 9:15am





Yahoo, Google Move Deeper Into Mobile Phones

from the phone-home dept

What is it about Yahoo and Google's announcement of new mobile products? They must be on a schedule or something -- the last time they hand new products, back in November, they were announced on the same day, and it's happened again. Google says some Motorola phones will have a Google button that will take users to its search engine with a single click, while Yahoo announced Yahoo Go Mobile, an application initially available for Nokia Series 60 handsets that integrates several Yahoo services. Yahoo Go has shortcuts to several existing Yahoo mobile services, but it also does syncing between a user's phone and their Yahoo account, keeping the address book current with their Yahoo contacts, uploading photos taken with the phone to their Yahoo photos and automatically checking their Yahoo email account.

Yahoo and Google are sticking to their different approaches to make names for themselves in mobile. Google's made some search-related deals, such as becoming the face of T-Mobile's mobile internet offering in some places, and having a dedicated button on Motorola handsets will give it high visibility, but also high usage -- it will be an easy way for people to fire up their phone's browser and start surfing, cutting out the carrier portal. Yahoo's sticking to its more application-centric approach, filling a void for many services that carriers have so far refused to fill. There are existing applications and services that carriers could offer their subscribers to do pretty much everything that Yahoo's offering, but few have chosen to do so. This gives Yahoo an opportunity to fill the gap and become the center of people's mobile experience. By doing nothing, the operators could find themselves relegated to being just bit pipes for voice and data (something they've strongly resisted through various means for years), and once Yahoo's holding all of a user's important information, that's one less barrier to keep them from switching providers.


4 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Steve George, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 7:22am

    New phone

    whats the new motorola music phone called? Steve

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Andrew Strasser, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 10:54am

    Keeping up with the competitors.

    I'm lovin' it! Really though this has been a great technology year altogether. There is a lot being done in research which is exactly whats supposed to be done in a research era. I mean hey it's great to see Yahoo and Google going out there and making a differance in this world.

    They've been ridiculed and told they should be charged for their internet scheming though if you look at it do you want to go back to bbs and ftp. I mean search engines have made business and the internet worth using. These two have taken it upon themselves among others to make sure that that R&D Era continues.

    We're not in a service Era anymore we can make robots to do that for us we just need to R&D them. The biggest letdown of the year for me was to not see an advancement on the Robo-sapien...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    Tim, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 2:38pm

    No Subject Given

    We are still at the mercy of the providers. Do you think Verizon is gonna let this happen?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Steve George, May 21st, 2006 @ 8:32pm

    Near PC

    whats the new motorola music phone called? Steve

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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