Christian Lindholm, Yahoo

"Of course we have a lot of servers, but they're quite boring".

Demoing Yahoo Go!

Mobile business currently: operators/service business vs device manufacturers/hardware biz.

This is changing to something like:

Device manufacturers + operators (added value transport) + internet service biz.

Isn't this what we have today (replace "internet service" with "content providers", then have an argument with yourself about what's content and what's a service).

"You cannot shrink the Internet to a 5-line display". Colour screens + packet data make a difference. You need to build a decent user experience around communications devices.

Search will be important. Shrinking desktop search is not the point (yay). "Users want answers, they don't want to conduct an act of search" (yay). Search + portal as a "fusion experience" (ow). The importance of "glanceability" for interfaces: you don't link to the weather, you see the weather.

Data routing: Yahoo has huge server assets built on leveraging users personal content (e.g. 250m email users, 2b photos on Yahoo servers - presumably incl Flickr). Even photos are getting quite large - so you need a data router to move content intelligently between Yahoo servers and handsets. Performs scaling etc. Mentioned scaling for TV as well as mobile.

Distribution and awareness are the key problems to solve. User experience optimised for device. A personalised experience (cue promise of targeting - I wonder if Yahoo can really deliver on this better than all the other folks who promised this over the last decade?).

Uses on-phone applications. Extends them where Yahoo can add value and improves the native user experience. Question: who's fault is it that the S60 user experience is inadequate ;)

Hacked native mail application has been extended to add Yahoo-specific commands.

Overall: looks good if you're (a) a hardcore Yahoo user and (b) owner of a decent Series 60 handset (i.e. not a memory-crippled 6680 or similar). Wonder how many of these people there are outside of Yahoo? Can't help feeling that if Microsoft did this same thing we'd all be spitting on them. Also wonder why I'm feeling so cynical about what looks like a very decent product, hmm...

Seems to have a decent slideshow app (something missing from the N70). Nice integration for accessing Yahoo photo albums over the net - can definitely see the value here. Hmm, Flickr client for reading via mobile *would* be nice - that's a weird inversion, most of the time I find myself complaining that folks just think of mobiles as a content consumption tool, as opposed to production... Don't think I'd want all the other stuff tho.

They're not using SyncML for this stuff, but their own proprietary protocols.

Comments

[Martin Sauter]

Thanks for the summary of Christians presentation (including your cynical view).

I guess it will take some more time before the formula 'Device manufacturers + operators (added value transport) + internet service biz.' (all work together...) becomes a reality. At the moment, I don't really see them working together, especially not the operators and the internet service biz. Operators would still like to control the application on top and thus don't like independent service biz. Apart from Vodafone and a tiny number of others, they haven't been able to come up with anything convincing even though they had several years to ponder on this.

Yahoo (Go), Nokia (Lifeblog), Skype and Google create quite some pressure for them lately by moving into the mobile services and VoIP space. That should help :-)

Martin

P.S.: Yup, the memory on the 6680 is quite tight, but Yahoo! Go works quite o.k. on mine.

[jbleecker]

Thanks for the remarks — good stuff. I _think_ I like the idea of Google or Yahoo stepping into the mobile media ecosystem, but as an MVNO. Start a service, open systems, no prejudiced service "decks" and disconnect devices from services — offer the full suite of handsets so that one isn't forced to purchase only the handsets carriers offer. Work out deals with Motorola, SG, Samsung, Nokia, etc., to allow customers to purchase anything and hook it up to the service. Create low usage and low pay-as-you-go plans that don't tax low usage customers for being low usage customers. Extend the notion of "lifestyle" MVNOs to, basically, everyone's individualized lifestyle by allowing the larger community of entrepreneurs and innovators to create a huge suite of service extensions, applications, games, etc., so that your mobile lifestyle is fully customized — from the device, to the applications and services.

Right now operators/carriers block every form of individualization and personalization, which causes more resentment, I would speculate based on informal surveys, than satisfaction and enjoyment. It wouldn't take much to leverage this. Google could afford to really jump into this mix — offer a 1/4 share of Google stock to cover the cost of breaking one's existing contract!