The Download Blog

Updated at 11:50 am on 9/16/08 to clarify the role of Blueprint.

Yahoo isn't wasting time advertising Blueprint, the seasoned mobile development platform that received renewed attentions in San Francisco last week at CTIA 2008. On Tuesday, the company released the most recent fruit of Blueprint's labor, a widget for the mobile application Yahoo Go (review) that peddles Yahoo Buzz, its Digg-like social news service.

From the Yahoo Buzz widget, social newshounds can access a summary of top stories voted on in the previous twelve hours by Yahoo users' popular vote. They'll click for a list of headlines, click again for an image and the low-down, and click a third time to follow links to a mobile browser page with the full story.

While the Buzz widget may have been developed on Blueprint, most users will be more interested in the widget as an alternate news source on Yahoo Go that will rival third-party news widgets and Yahoo's own mainstream and entertainment feeds.

The mobile application Yahoo Go primarily serves as Yahoo's hub for the rainbow of its services--e-mail, headline and sports news, Flickr, weather, maps, and search--though Yahoo has made efforts to open content to outside publishers by inviting developers to create a widgets gallery and by furthermore inviting mobile users to add RSS widgets of their favorite sites. There are some respectable widgets in the public gallery, including Wikipedia, eBay, MTV News, and social networks Facebook and MySpace; however, the gallery is a mere thumbprint by Facebook and iPhone app standards.

You can add the Yahoo Buzz widget to Yahoo Go by searching the widget gallery from within the app or by browsing the Yahoo category. iPhone users can also access Buzz from an optimized site independent of Yahoo Go, not yet a native iPhone app.

Viigo's flagship RSS reader is now only one data destination of many.

(Credit: Viigo)

Another Yahoo department has cause for concern. Up until last week, Yahoo Go was top dog in the mobile widget arena, pulling everything from weather, news, and finance to local listings, Flickr photos, and search onto Yahoo Go 3.0 beta, the company's rich application for smartphones. But Viigo 3.0 beta has added many of the same elements to what is essentially a faster-loading and more visually straightforward wrapper.

I've sung Viigo's praises when it was flexing new-found muscle as a superb RSS reader for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. The new beta, released June 19, still retains its RSS-fetching core, but news is now one tab of nine. Like Yahoo Go, Viigo 3.0 beta will report on sports scores, weather, entertainment, stocks, travel, and local listings.

The resemblance to Yahoo Go's more famous 3.0 beta has not been lost on Viigo CEO Mark Ruddock, who stated in an interview with CNET Download.com that the similarities between the two content programs are more coincidental duplication than deliberate emulation.

"[Viigo's] services reflect the services we believe will initially be the most interesting," Ruddock said. While it's true that Viigo will necessarily have to mirror much of Yahoo's content in order to make it as the "everything" source for mobile data, Viigo's engineers will have to work hard to introduce features that surpass its greatest rivals. "It's the way we will compete with anyone in this space," he added.

Viigo's weather-reading channel, in cahoots with Accuweather.

(Credit: Viigo)

More to come
Here's Viigo's vision. First, there's filling in the features laid out in this first beta build, many of which are mere placeholders marked by screenshots of sneak previews. Next come back-end changes that will mash up content for richly integrated data on a results screen. And as always, there's gaining new partnerships with content providers, among them a major music label with whom Viigo would like to offer band and concert information and audio tracks and podcasts. Opening up an XML-based development platform in Q1 is expected to also populate Viigo with content and new functionality.

Until then, Viigo 3.0 beta is in good shape for forging ahead and quite possibly for besting Yahoo Go. The product isn't yet where it ought to be, admits CEO Ruddock. The old RSS mainstay cries out for a visual overhaul to match the new look; the full feature set has yet to be completed; and the home screen demands customization--just ask users wondering why Canadian football deserves to be the third-most valued channel on their reader. That slot obviously belongs to the SPL.

Windows Mobile users now have a green light to try Yahoo Go (video review) on their Windows Mobile phones.

The third version of Yahoo's all-in-one content application for smartphones debuted in January in beta form, and with it came tricks for greater customization. Users can add a variety of widgets to the carousel and quick links to the start page, and otherwise personalize the source of mobile content. The full list of supported Windows Mobile phones can be found here.

At CTIA 2008 in Las Vegas, Yahoo unveiled three new cell phone apps that have been cooking in Yahoo's kitchen. We got a taste of all of them. There's Yahoo oneSearch 2.0 (hands-on review), which has debuted on selective BlackBerrys with a new feature to search for any term you speak or type.

Then there's a dynamic bookmarking feature, Yahoo onePlace, which focuses on managing your interests. In addition to bookmarking search results, like a flight number, it will also import sites you've previously starred on GoogleReader and Digg, and will develop a predictive search that adapts to your search preferences. My favorite feature lets you sort links into collections, for instance, all links pertaining to an upcoming trip or birthday party.

Taking a detour from search-related items is oneConnect, which, similar to Digsby, puts your instant messenger, Twitter, and social network contacts into one place, but on your cell phone. The integration of SMS and e-mail capabilities from your smartphone makes it possible to seamlessly carry on conversations when a buddy's logged off IM.

Yahoo expects to release all three products as widgets for its all-in-one mobile content app, Yahoo Go 3 (reviewed) over the next few months, but each should also be available as a standalone app for users who prefer their Yahoo a la carte.

If you've been thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if Yahoo updated its mobile app, and someone made a video to point out the main features?," you're in luck, because they did, and we did. Yahoo announced Yahoo Go 3.0 beta at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in mid-January, which stands out from its predecessor with an improved interface and new capabilities. Read the hands-on review or watch the First Look video below to see what they are.

>>See all First Look videos

This article has been updated to include new information.

Does the new Yahoo Go 3.0 beta herald Yahoo's new mobile strategy? That's what Yahoo would like you to think.

At first glance, the new Yahoo Go, a portal on the mobile phone to Yahoo's proprietary services--e-mail, Flickr, messaging, maps and directions, weather, and categorized news--looks strikingly similar to the old Yahoo Go. Sure, it's more celestial-looking with a burnished blue sky, pillowy clouds, and rays of emanating light that replace the bubbly signature yellow of its predecessor. But the carousel layout and offerings are essentially the same.

Here's what's not. The carousel is unfixed, which means users can delete Yahoo's default widgets and add their own for a much more tailored experience. The new Yahoo Go also makes use of keypad shortcuts. Pressing '#' gets you back to the carousel and '0' (zero) launches oneSearch. Reminders are tucked into most context menus.

The start screen is another brushup, helpfully summarizing your Yahoo inbox, and letting you add customized "snippets" of information, like a stock price, Web link, or RSS feed. Quick links are also shown on this page--users can select from various Yahoo services or include links to favorite Web sites. I liked both ideas, but questioned the implementation of a long, scrolling page layout that puts my quick links far below the snippet section, defeating the purpose of immediate access.

As part of the Consumer Electronics Show extravaganza in Las Vegas this week, Yahoo has opted to announce the next iteration of its mobile offering, Yahoo Go. The new beta product arrives at a time when just about every other huge name in tech--Google, Apple, you name it--is making a bigger push for the handset market, and (slightly) smaller brands like Facebook and MTV have been tweaking their mobile products.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo, however, isn't about to put out a Yahoo Phone. The new Yahoo Go 3.0, rather, is a free downloadable application compatible with about 30 different handsets so far. (The company says that dozens more are on the way.) A "start page" allows Yahoo users to access a number of the company's applications, like Yahoo Mail and Flickr, as well as the requisite news-and-weather mobile features.

Yahoo has additionally launched a developer initiative to put third-party widgets into its mobile offerings. Initial launch partners include eBay, MySpace, and MTV News; these applications can be selected and installed directly from Yahoo Go's mobile "Widget Gallery."

And perhaps more importantly for Yahoo, the company hopes that the latest iteration of Go will enable it to better serve up mobile advertisements.

But, as a New York Times article notes, this isn't actually a mobile operating system, it's a piece of software that piggy-backs on a handset's existing firmware--and that could prove difficult for Yahoo. "Other companies, including cellphone makers like Nokia and Apple, and mobile software providers, like Google and Microsoft, are trying to lure third-party publishers and programmers to create services for their mobile platforms," the story pointed out.

A company eager to put its brand into the mobile market could consequently find it counterproductive to create widgets for a downloadable software package like Yahoo Mobile. The application comes pre-loaded on a number of partner handsets, but the Times article explains that U.S. cell carriers remove this prior to retail, meaning that it has to be manually downloaded. Widgets created for Yahoo Go quite likely won't have the reach of applications created for operating systems like Apple's iPhone firmware or Google's hyped Android project.

It is, ultimately, a question of ubiquity.

Yahoo Go brings an iconic approach to mobile browsing.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

iPhone has its touch Safari browser, ZenZui will have its tiles, and Yahoo has Yahoo Go 2.0 Beta, a free service that also seeks to give users a novel Internet experience--especially if the users in question are Yahoo groupies.

Essentially a buffed and polished vehicle for its products and services, Yahoo Go groups its search bar, calendar, e-mail, news feed, and Flickr photo services in a single, well-proportioned design. Rotating carousel icons launch each service and keep the interface snappy. The app stays on top of frequently refreshing the page.

Yahoo Go avoids the problem of overcrowding suffered by Yahoo's Web portal by limiting its quick-launch services to maps, e-mail, photos, entertainment, weather, news, sports, and finance headline feeds. It sounds like a hefty load until you skim Yahoo.com's landing page and realize the leagues of content left behind, including auto, auction, Answers, personals, travel, tech, groups, and games; not to mention the new OMG! gossip headlines leveled at teenage it-girls.