On Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Yahoo announced the Yahoo Mobile Developer Platform, as well as a new mobile  home page and the third generation of its Yahoo Go software for mobile phones.
The Yahoo Mobile Developer Platform is being introduced as a "one-stop solution" so that developers can create mobile widgets that are "easy to build, quick to deploy, and run across a wide selection of devices."
According to Yahoo, applications created with the Mobile Developer Platform can be coded once, published across hundreds of devices, and offered through a Yahoo Widget Gallery, which is accessible from Yahoo's new mobile home page and through the new Yahoo Go 3.0 software.
Widgets Abound
The first third-party widgets are available this week from eBay, MySpace, and MTV. Yahoo said that LG Electronics, Motorola, and other device manufacturers will collaborate to make mobile widgets available on their products, and that a full-featured development kit and guidelines will be issued soon.
The eBay widgets enable mobile functionality directed toward that site, including bidding, searching, browsing, and tracking items. MySpace widgets allow a mobile user to check "mood updates," mail, and photos from friends, while MTV's widgets can connect to breaking news about current events, music, or celebrity gossip.
Yahoo's new mobile home page is designed to be customizable, with content from Yahoo, other Web sites, and of course widgets. It features updates from when a user last visited, Yahoo Snippets from favorite content sources, and customizable Quick Links.
Open Mobile Platforms
The company said that a fragmented landscape of mobile devices, browsers, and operating systems, coupled with a dearth of scalable development platforms, has meant that mobile services have been handicapped "way below the potential of the marketplace."
The best way to bring "the best possible Internet experience" to mobile consumers, Yahoo executive vice president Marco Boerries said in a statement, is "to open up our mobile platform in order the tap the innovation and talent of the world's developers and publishers."
New mobile platforms such as the one introduced by Yahoo can dramatically change the environment for consumers and publishers, but Jupiter Analyst Michael Gartenberg pointed out that it's far easier to introduce a platform than to get developers and consumers to adopt it.
Gartenberg did say that although "everyone now wants to be part of the mobile arena," Yahoo was an early pioneer.
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