Although late in the game, Yahoo Inc said yesterday it would launch Yahoo Mobile services in seven countries beginning at the end of this quarter and continuing throughout the year by collaborating with more than 70 telecommunications operators worldwide.
Rather than building an Android, Apple or Microsoft Mobile platform, Yahoo chose to focus on five channels of distribution for monetization and drive customized advertising with its location-based services, Yahoo chief scientist Marc Davis told a media gathering in Taipei.
The five distribution channels are telecom carriers, handset makers, the Yahoo Web site, word of mouth and free application downloads on competitors’ platforms such as iTunes, he said.
“Through all these channels as opposed to focusing on one single platform, Yahoo aims to reach over 4 billion handsets currently in use globally, making Yahoo Mobile truly ubiquitous,” Davis said.
Yahoo Mobile will likely be available in Taiwan some time this year, Elise Chiu (邱瀅憓), audience group vice president at Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), said yesterday.
“Taiwan has a mobile penetration rate of 104.6 percent, showing a huge potential for publishers and advertisers to reach out to the huge mobile consumer markets,” Chiu said.
Neither Davis nor Chiu elaborated on which local telecom operators Yahoo was likely to team up with.
Of all the technologies available on Yahoo Mobile, Yahoo-Kimo currently has partnerships with Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) to provide mobile users with oneSearch functions.
These search functions do not bring up unnecessary Web sites, but rather locations and telephone numbers of the things a user is searching for.
Yahoo-Kimo has commented on several challenges that the local mobile industry is facing, including the need to create more relevant and local mobile content and compelling mobile services that can drive more consumers to use the mobile Internet.
“Yahoo Mobile’s goal is to enable users to create their own Internet starting point on their mobile device so they can better discover, connect to and stay informed about the people and things that are important to them,” Davis said.
These technologies are soon to be released and include Geo Planet, Fire Eagle, oneConnect, Network Time and onePlace.
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