Demonstrates Yahoo!’s Unwavering Focus on Delivering Relevant Experiences Across All Platforms & Devices; Co-founder David Filo Joins Yang On Stage, Showcases Technology Concepts
Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) Co-Founder and CEO Jerry Yang kicked off the 2008 International CES Industry Insider Series today detailing the company’s vision for delivering the most personally-relevant and indispensable Internet experience to consumers worldwide. Addressing the needs of today’s users, Yang provided the first public demonstration of Yahoo!’s latest mobile offerings and offered a concept demonstration of the future of the desktop experience.
In his speech, Yang said “from the newest to the most experienced user, Yahoo!’s goal is to be the simple starting point for a much richer and more complex world so you can get more out of it. Whether you’re looking for fun, information, entertainment or social connections, you want to experience everything to the fullest – this is living life with an exclamation point.”
According to Yang, the company’s goal is to strengthen Yahoo!’s role as the preferred starting point for anything and everything users need online. To this end, the company plans to focus resources on becoming the best starting point for the entire web.
“To be the best starting point, it’s clear that we need to open the Yahoo! experience to any device or user. Mobile is a perfect example since more consumers are soon expected to come and go from the Net via their phones rather than desktops,” he said. “We’re committed to creating the best and richest mobile experience for all consumers – making it extremely personalized to their individual style and needs while opening up the Yahoo! mobile platform to allow anyone to participate.”
Powering the Mobile Ecosystem
During his address, Yang welcomed the company’s executive vice president for Connected Life, Marco Boerries, on stage to demonstrate several new mobile offerings launched at this year’s CES and to elaborate on Yahoo!’s mission to foster a mobile ecosystem – ultimately serving billions of users – by providing indispensable and compelling services to consumers, developers/publishers and advertisers.
• Announced today, the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform introduces a one-stop solution for developers to create mobile-optimized applications (i.e., mobile widgets) that are easy to build, quick to deploy and run across a wide selection of devices, thus making it easier for Internet content and services to “go mobile.” It will provide developers with the tools to write code once and efficiently publish their content across hundreds of devices – instantly accessible by hundreds of millions of users. Yahoo!’s Mobile Developer Platform is expected to usher in a dramatic acceleration in the adoption of mobile services by creating an explosion of new choices for the consumer. The first third-party widgets built on this new platform – from launch partners including eBay, MySpace and Viacom – will be made available this week.
• Yahoo! added another essential new service today though the early beta launch of the new Yahoo! mobile home page, a visually-stunning and easy to navigate interface for the most visited mobile site in the U.S. (M:Metrics, October 2007) – destined to quickly become the essential starting point for the mobile Internet globally. Designed to incorporate the best “home page” elements from pioneering PC portals such as My Yahoo! and the yahoo.com front page, it embraces a dynamic, open and highly personalized approach. By visiting http://beta.m.yahoo.com from select mobile phone browsers, consumers will be able to get an at-a-glance update of what’s new since their last visit (new emails, upcoming calendar appointments, etc), previews of their favorite web content (news headlines, weather conditions, etc), as well as tools to quickly get to their most frequently used services on the mobile Internet.
• The latest version of Yahoo!’s flagship, all-in-one mobile offering, Yahoo! Go 3.0, also launched in an early beta today. Yahoo! Go 3.0 builds on the success and popularity of the preceding 2.0 version: but where Yahoo! Go 2.0 was a collection of mobile-optimized Yahoo! services, Yahoo! Go 3.0 is an “open” environment including an enhanced design, the new Yahoo! home page and Yahoo!’s full selection of Mobile Widgets developed by third parties. Users now can tap into the vast selection offered by the rest of the Internet – making it even easier for mobile consumers to get exactly what they want, when they want it and how they want it.
For additional information on all of Yahoo!’s announcements at CES 2008 please visit Yahoo!’s Mobile Press Room at http://mobile.yahoo.com/newsroom.
A Starting Point for the Future
Yang also provided a preview of several exciting technology concepts that deliver upon his vision by sharing a glimpse of what his Yahoo! Mail inbox could look like. Yang demonstrated how Yahoo! could determine a user’s most relevant personal connections across both Yahoo! and multiple social networks. In doing so, Yahoo! would create a smarter mail box that prioritizes the most important messages from the most important people, providing a more personally relevant e-mail experience for consumers.
Not only did Yang show how Yahoo! Mail could prioritize a user’s most relevant connections, he also demonstrated how Yahoo! could open up Yahoo! Mail and incorporate mini applications (or widgets) from both Yahoo! and across the Internet. For example, by simply scrolling over relevant terms in their e-mail, users in the future could access things like maps, local reviews, invitations and more, directly from their inbox without having to open another browser.
By opening up Yahoo! Mail in addition to other services across Yahoo!, third party developers would be able to create new applications that delight hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
“Yahoo! has today outlined what is possible and that the future is not that far away,” said David Filo, co-founder and Chief Yahoo!. “Yahoo! is uniquely positioned to make this all a reality – we have scale, a huge community of users, great applications and APIs and insightful data. We now have an open platform for third party developers to build some interesting applications.”
“That’s the vision of the future we want to leave you with today: Yahoo! helping make the most of the Internet and the people you care about on whatever platform,” he continued. “We will continue working to provide you with an online starting point that’s more relevant, fulfilling and fun.”
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal.
Yahoo!, Yahoo! Go, and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning the Yahoo Mobile Developer Platform, the Yahoo! Mobile Home Page, Yahoo! Go 3.0, and Yahoo! Mail (“the services”) (including without limitation the statements contained in the quotations from management in this press release), as well as Yahoo!’s strategic and operational plans. Actual events or results may differ materially from those described in this press rel
ease due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the possibility that the expected or planned further implementations of the services described may be delayed, may not ultimately be implemented, or if implemented may not be successful; consumers, developers, publishers, and advertisers may not accept or respond as positively to the services as anticipated; and competitors may offer similar competing services. More information about potential factors that could affect Yahoo!’s business and financial results is included under the captions, „Risk Factors“ and „Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,“ in Yahoo!’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, which are on file with the SEC and available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.
