Yahoo’s Mobile Platform: Go 3.0
01/08/2008, 7 months 3 weeks ago
I couldn't resist the title for this article since I've jumped so whole-heartedly on the desire for what's coming next. Yahoo announced the latest version of their mobile platform at CES, and hopes it's going to be the platform that finally unites the mobile web.
Yahoo Go 3.0 is what CEO Jerry Wang hopes will “get Yahoo yodeling again.” With its new development environment built in XML called Blueprint, the hope is that the ease of development and a forthcoming SDK will bring in the developers to centralize web apps on the Go 3.0 platform. The hope is that Yahoo will become THE portal for mobile Web users, much as they were in the good old days on the Web.
The idea behind the new platform is that even phones that can't run the full Go 3.0 platform will be able to use the widgets, provided they can display plain HTML or XHTML.
The screenshots look tempting, but, of course, the first thing I did when I heard the news was rush out to see what all the hullabaloo was about, only to discover that the beta version runs on only 30 mobile devices. While they promise that it will eventually run on the over 300 devices currently supported for Yahoo Go 2.0, they have left off the ENTIRE Motorola RAZR/KRAZR platform in favor of the Blackberries. Sure, it appeals to all the Crackberryheads, but last time I was out and about, there were still a majority of us plebians accessing mobile apps on a Motorola device. If Jerry wants Yahoo to regain its once omnipresent status as the go-to portal on mobile, he might want to keep the little folks in mind.
Please let me know if you have a supported device and get to try it out for yourself. I'm interested to see if this is really the new and improved mobile web.
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Yahoo! Go 2.0 does run on Motorola RAZR/KRZR phones, but applications for Moto phones need to be signed to run properly. This disadvantage does not apply for Blackberry phones. That’s why the Yahoo! clients for Moto are usually older than other clients.
Moreover Cingular blocks all downloads/installations over 500K, that is another reason why Yahoo! Go was blocked for Moto phones in the Cingular network.
KRZR, I was aware that they had to be signed, but still figured with the number of KRZR/RAZR users it would be worth the effort.
I was NOT however, aware of the Cingular block. There’s no way around that? It seems ludicrous that you pay for the phone, pay for the bandwidth, and are still hobbled by the carrier.