LAS VEGAS --(Business Wire)-- Jan. 6, 2006 Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced the launch of Yahoo! Go, a new suite of innovative products designed to extend the company's reach beyond the Web browser. Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel featured the new Yahoo! Go products in his keynote today at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Yahoo! Go Mobile, TV and Desktop will enable consumers to quickly and easily access the Internet information and services they want across the various devices they use every day.
"Yahoo! Go allows us to free the best of what the Internet has to offer from the confines of the browser and provides consumers fast and easy access to the essential products and services they know and love," said Terry Semel, chairman and CEO, Yahoo!. "Yahoo! is well positioned to provide a seamlessly connected experience that delivers the services our hundreds of millions of loyal users want -- whenever, wherever and however they want to connect."
Yahoo! Go services (http://go.yahoo.com) are designed to make the most of the functionality available on consumer's devices and will give them the freedom to go wherever they want and always have their information and content close at hand. For example, Yahoo! Go services will allow a consumer to take a photo with their camera phone and instantly view it on their computer, television or mobile phone through Yahoo! Photos.
Yahoo! has established relationships with a number of leading partners to bring the Yahoo! Go suite of services to consumers, including equipment manufacturers, wireless providers and telecommunications companies.
"Yahoo! Go will make consumers' personally relevant information available to them anytime across their mobile phone, TV or personal computer," said Marco Boerries, senior vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo!. "By making Yahoo! Go open, we are giving consumers the ability to easily access not only the Yahoo! services they find most vital, but also the universe of information available from across the web."
Yahoo! Go Mobile
Yahoo! Go Mobile integrates the Internet into the mobile phone experience. The new service is designed to combine real-time connectivity with community, information and content services from across the web. Yahoo! Go Mobile also integrates the company's familiar communications services with the phone's built-in e-mail, messaging, address book and calendar applications, giving consumers one reliable source for the information they find most vital. For example, if a user loses his or her mobile phone their contact information will not be lost -- it will still be available on the web and could be easily synched with a new mobile phone. Yahoo! Go Mobile will be available to consumers in select markets in the coming weeks.
Yahoo! Go TV
Yahoo! Go TV will deliver the power and depth of the Internet to the PC-connected television. By bringing consumers' community and content such as digital photos and movie playtimes at local theaters and other personalized services from across the web to the TV, Yahoo! Go TV will make the television experience even more fun and useful. Yahoo! will also look to make the company's music offerings available through this new service. Yahoo! Go TV also dramatically improves the ability for consumers to navigate and find content on their television. For example, $consumers will be able to use their remote control to see what's playing at their local theater or share pictures from a recent vacation with friends, all on their television screen. The company expects to launch Yahoo! Go TV services in the coming months.
Yahoo! Go Desktop
Yahoo! Go Desktop is a suite of applications that will make it easy for consumers to keep up-to-date on and interact with their world of information. Consumers will be able to use the individual Yahoo! Go Desktop services to connect to the information that matters to them online, but without having to open a browser window on their personal computer.
The initial services available as part of Yahoo! Go Desktop will be the Yahoo! Widgets Engine and a Yahoo! Go Desktop dashboard. The Yahoo! Go Desktop dashboard will connect consumers' personal content to their services and their Internet community. For example, consumers will be able to link their personal contacts to Yahoo! Local, which will make it easy for them to update their address book with their favorite local businesses.
The Yahoo! Widget Engine is an application that allows light-weight files called "Widgets" to live directly on a user's desktop and perform a wide variety of tasks, such as checking for wi-fi presence or strength, finding contacts in an address book, viewing a user's calendar, or checking their latest e-mail. Widgets are built on an open platform, which allows any third party developer to build and distribute their own widgets.
There are more than 1,500 Widgets available today and the company expects to make the Yahoo! Go Desktop dashboard available in the coming months.
