Yahoo, sadly, has discontinued their "Go" service for mobile phones. This is quite disappointing to those of us that enjoyed accessing Ebay, Caltrain schedules and Flickr via an interface reminiscent of an early Palm pda.
To quote Yahoo on their departure from the web-portal-in-your-pocket game:
"November 18, 2009,
There are many reasons. There are more sophisticated mobile devices and browsers available to you, and your needs are changing. You need easier ways to access your favorite Yahoo! content and services from your mobile phone. To respond to these changes, we have created a new mobile homepage. It is available across more than 3,000 devices at http://m.yahoo.com. In addition, we have feature-rich applications for a variety of devices. We will make mobile versions of more Yahoo! services, improve existing offerings, and develop new and engaging experiences that integrate Yahoo! Mobile services and reach many mobile devices and browsers."
I guess the eggheads in Sunnyvale saw the writing on the wall in Cupertino (or Palo Alto!) and figured that competing against the iPhone onslaught whilst simultaneously facing the rising of the Androids was a losing battle. Especially when their offering was akin to a circa 1994 Apple Newton, in color.
The idea behind "Go" was essentially a portal type environment, not unlike a My-Yahoo page, with various widgets thrown together by independent developers on their own initiative. None of the widgets I used had any cost attached, so there was the added benefit of adding functionality to my mobile device without having to visit some "app store", negotiating multiple pages of an end user liscense agreement, giving a pound of flesh, and agreeing to be billed on my cell providers bill. (wait was that a one time charge or recurring?).Okay I won't lie. I used Yahoo Go to access Ebay from my blackberry. Frequently. It also had some nifty little widgets for several San Francisco Bay area transit agencies.
Of course Yahoo Go went nowhere. The initial offerings by Yahoo brand sites like Flickr were joined by a few others that are strategic partners like Ebay, and a few more that overachieving Stanford students found useful, like Caltrain ans sports scores. Then nothing. The Carousel interface was just silly. Once you had more than 5 or 6 items in there it became a pain in the ass. There was also the opaque functionality of it. It took me a couple of days to figure out how to properly exit from Go so my Blackberry's battery wouldn't die quite as fast.
So basically Yahoo realized, our mobile presence sucks.
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