Lauched during Motorola CEO Ed Zander’s CES keynote speech, Yahoo wants you to get excited! Their ‘Go’ mobile service gives phones an information rich web portal designed for small screens and seemingly giving you the information you want quickly and efficiently with as few clicks as possible.

But if there’s one thing common to most of these online services, it’s that they suck. Either the walled garden approach limits the type of information available, removing one of the Internet’s best aspects of limitless information, or the information is provided as a series of text links that is just hard to read on those tiny mobile phone screens.

Because the Internet has been available in mobile form for some time with few regular users, starting off with the WAP debacle of a slow, text based interface that was nothing like the Internet on standard computers, it’s only a matter of time before the mobile interface is sorted out and it actually becomes pleasurable and genuinely useful to use your phone to quickly find the information you’re looking for, whatever it may be.

And because it would seem that this time is near, a company like Yahoo wants to be the premier mobile information and Internet platform, no matter what phone you use or which provider you buy your airtime from.

They want to achieve this with Go for Mobile 2.0, a software program for your phone that has a very slick interface giving you access to not only the mobile web, but to Yahoo packaged results on all the big topics: news, sports, weather, technology, finance and more. When you’re searching for something, you’ll also get a section showing prices (if applicable), images and news results. News feeds can also come from RSS feeds, letting you keep an eye on the feeds you’ve already selected on your PC, while adding new ones as required right on the phone.

Full integration with photo sharing service Flikr is included, which is hardly surprising as it is owned by Yahoo. It gives you an easy way to manage your photo collection, both the one from your existing digital camera and uploaded to Flikr, and with the photos you take with your cameraphone. Email can be easily compose, read, deleted and instantly searched on-the-go, with all actions performed on your phone duplicated on your desktop PC’s Yahoo Mail account.

Strong localization and even turn-by-turn mapping services are also included, with plans no doubt in place to offer localization features no matter where you are on the planet, if a vast proportion of it is not already included.

When Yahoo launched the first version of ‘Go’, it was panned by reviewers as being too limiting and too hard to use. If Yahoo’s slick 20 minute demo is anything to go by, which can be fast forwarded and rewound easily, as it were, so you can quickly see the features you’re interested in, Yahoo have listened to the criticisms and have released what looks to be a real winner in the mobile Internet usage stakes. Taking a quick peek at the tour properly demonstrates what the software is like to use, so do check it out if you have the time.

If you want to download the software direct to your phone yourself, just use the link in the previous paragraph and you’ll be given the option to enter your cell phone number to have an SMS text message sent to you with a link to download it immediately.

Unfortunately, they’re still in beta mode, so when I tried doing exactly that, I was told that the beta is ‘full’ right now, but I could be informed by SMS the second a slot opened up, and to click ‘send’ if I wanted this to happen. There was also an invitation to have a look at Yahoo’s existing mobile web service which is delivered through HTML optimized for cell phones.

I had a look at that, and while not as slick as Go for Mobile 2.0, it was pretty good – much better, actually, than using the standard Google experience as seen at http://mobile.google.com, through a cell phone screen. No doubt Google are also working on improved mobile search and web experiences, and are reported to be providing a Google search tool with advanced features including access to Google Maps, searching and more on the go, so Yahoo can’t hope to hold the lead forever here. Yahoo is already embroiled in a big battle with Google, Microsoft and anyone else who believes they can do as well or better.

As can be expected from a company with an exclamation mark in its name, Yahoo executives are very excited by Go 2.0. Marco Boerries, senior vice president of connected life, Yahoo said that: "Yahoo! intends to be the number one mobile Internet player globally. Today we are changing the game by putting the full power of the open Internet into consumers' pockets. Yahoo! Go 2.0 creates an entirely new and beautiful experience that fits great phones, like the new MOTORAZR maxx V6 or V3xx devices."

The Motorola reference is there because Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola, helped Yahoo launched Go 2.0 during his CES 2007 keynote speech, although Go 2.0 will work on over 70 different models of phone from all the major manufacturers.

Scott Durchslag, corporate vice-president of product and xperience invention at Motorola mobile devices said that: "Consumers crave cool experiences on the coolest devices and the desire for seamless connectivity has never been stronger. Integrating services like Yahoo! Go 2.0 with Motorola devices enables consumers to stay connected with the people, places and information they want, whenever they want it."

I look forward to actually using Go 2.0 when Yahoo opens up some more beta slots before I can fully pass judgment on how successful it will all be. But for now, it looks like an excellent version 2.0 that puts most previous efforts to shame, and sets the challenge for Google and Microsoft to respond with even better versions of their own.
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Alex Zaharov-Reutt  Browsers  CES  Email  Gadgets  Google  Internet  Messaging  Microsoft  Mobility  Search  Telecommunications  Web  Yahoo!