Yahoo! Inc. Thursday rolled
out the second phase of its strategy to make its content widely accessible to mobile users.
Yahoo! has added wireless access to its yellow pages, driving directions,
people search and wireless directory with search and
bookmark options on the go. Geared for users of mobile phones and handheld
devices, the launch is the latest episode of the company’s ongoing quest to
bring its content to users from wherever they wish.
Yahoo!’s upgrade comes nearly a year after its first foray into wireless
access, in which it made its My Yahoo!, Yahoo!
mail, sports, finance, news, weather and auctions available to wireless
buffs.
As part of its Yahoo! Everywhere strategy, Yahoo! has
inked wireless agreements with a number of service providers and
manufacturers of Web-connected devices Palm
Computing , Motorola Corp.
and Sprint PCS.
Its most recent partnership also came Thursday as the behemoth and AT&T
Wireless Services agreed to grant users access to Yahoo! Web content via
AT&T’s Digital PocketNet service. Yahoo! users will have wireless access
delivered by two-way interactive services and notifications to their AT&T
Internet-ready phones.
Yahoo! will initially deliver five personalized features to AT&T data phones
that include Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Finance.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Though some industry pundits have claimed that wireless Internet access is
still years away in terms of being used on a day-to-day regular basis — as
is the case with cellular phones — Net sector executives remain optimistic.
“We know that this is going to be really big and we really need to be there
early just like we were on the PC,” said Sadhana Joliet, producer for Yahoo
Everywhere.
Yahoo! made its first great foray into the wireless world last June when it
acquired Online Anywhere, a maker of software that delivers the Internet to
televisions, personal digital assistants, or data phones, for $80 million in
stock.