Yahoo Inc, the world's largest Internet media company, unveiled
a new service that allows mobile phones and TVs to control
its Web services similarly to the way computers do now.
Chief Executive Terry Semel said the new products, marketed
under the newly established Yahoo Go brand, would propel
his company beyond the Web browser and onto phone and television
screens.
"Connecting the Internet to any device you might imagine" is
the next stage of the Web, Semel told the Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas, the largest U.S. electronics convention. "(Consumers)
want that ability to take that information with them wherever
they go."
The products include Yahoo Go Mobile and Yahoo Go TV. A third
product, Yahoo Go Desktop, will tie the phone and TV services
back to the most common way of using Yahoo services, which
far and away remains the personal computer.
The phone service is a logical extension of Yahoo's efforts
to become a standard channel on mobile phone screens instead
of being available only on special phones via Web browsers.
The television plan, which represents a far more ambitious
and early-stage effort, will target consumers buying PC-linked
TVs with fast Internet connections.
"We want to connect to the three screens of (consumers')
lives: the mobile phone you always have with you, the big
screen (TV) and the PC screen you have in the office," Marco
Boerries, Yahoo's senior vice president in charge of the
project, said ahead of Semel's speech.
The Yahoo Go service will be embedded on millions of Nokia
phones sold world-wide, he said. Yahoo is also working with
U.S. phone partners AT&T Inc and Cingular Wireless.
Yahoo Go Mobile will be available in the United States in
coming weeks. Consumers buying certain Nokia 6630, 6680,
6681 and N70 devices -- all so-called Series 60 smartphones
-- will receive the Yahoo Go Mobile service pre-installed.
Roughly 10 countries, including Britain, Germany, France,
Singapore, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia,
are to follow in the first quarter, a spokeswoman said.
Regionally, Then In 10 Countries
Yahoo will launch Yahoo Go Mobile with AT&T and Cingular
in the traditional 13-state local phone service region of
AT&T in the southern and western United States. It will
also be available in a handful of other unspecified markets,
they said.
Cingular is the largest U.S. wireless carrier. It is jointly
owned by AT&T and BellSouth Corp, the No. 3 U.S. provider
of local phone service.
Yahoo Go marks the latest step in a four-year program through
which Yahoo has formed broadband marketing partnerships with
major communications carriers in the United States, Canada
and Britain, executives said.
Within the 13-state AT&T core service region, the partners
will offer a co-branded Go Mobile service for existing AT&T-Yahoo
broadband customers to link their home Internet access with
their mobile phones.
Yahoo Go TV will allow consumers to link their existing base
of Yahoo contacts and resources directly into their televisions,
allowing them to watch digital photos and to check news,
sports or other Yahoo services from the same account they
use on their computer or mobile phone.
"Consumers want communications that revolve around them,
not the other way around," Scott Helbing, AT&T chief
consumer marketer, said in a joint statement.
Separately, Yahoo announced a world-wide deal to pre-install
e-mail, instant messaging, address book and scheduling applications
on millions of new Motorola Inc mobile phones, including
the sleek Razr model, during the first quarter.
Yahoo's ties to Nokia began with a similar deal last June.
