Well Yahoo! launched it's "Go" initiative today, as part of CEO Terry Semel's keynote at CES. As Paidcontent summarizes it, Go is:
"...a series of mobile and connected TV-PC initiatives.
-- Yahoo Go Mobile is a set of communications and media applications, including Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Photos, calendar, address book, Web and image search, news, sports and finance. The services will be preloaded on Nokia Series 60 mobile phones and available in 10 countries worldwide, and available to Cingular and AT&T customers in U.S.
-- Yahoo Go TV, which will be available before April, will make entertainment-related services available on any PC-connected TV through a small downloadable app. The services include local and video search, including access to content from CNN and MTV, movie trailers, and other info from My Yahoo. The service will be free but will have ads.
-- Yahoo Go Desktop brings a suite of services to PCs that do not rely on a browser, essentially bringing all the Yahoo apps and services on the desktop.
-- Yahoo will also add functionality to remotely program the recording of TV shows over mobile phones, and eventually offer music services through the TV."
In essence, Go seems to be an amalgamation of existing Yahoo! features and initiatives, bits from recent acquisitions (like Konfabulator last July), recent alliances (like with Tivo in November), all packaged around a cohesive SUITE that extends Yahoo! portal services from the PC to the TV and Mobile phones/devices.
This is something all the GYMAAAE companies are and will continue to focus on, as the opportunities for internet services beyond the PC become much more tangible.
Tristan Louis has a good post up with some helpful tables that fill out where at least some of the GYMAAAE players are in filling in their matrix of technologies, products, features, and services. He also has an interesting table on how some of these companies are planning to make money off these efforts, early as these plans may be.
We need to keep two things in mind as very familiar portal services migrate from the PC to the TV, mobiles and beyond.
First, we're not in the flat-lands of Kansas, er, PC-land anymore. These services don't have to work on just one, maybe two operating systems (Windows and Apple), and their underlying hardware. We're now facing the challenge of verticalized silos of hardware, software and network platforms, and of course the grim determination of a wide array of incumbents in telco, cable, wireless, and media businesses to protect their turf at all costs. Of course with a little bit of extra help from their favorite regulatory agencies and political supporters in Washington.
Second, consumers are going to be dazzled by the promise of these services, and then in many cases, intensely frustrated by the complexity of making them work, at least in the first few generations. And they'll be looking for people to blame, regardless of the fact that these services are in many cases the product of intricate tapestries of partners and alliances. With of course, many of these partners looking to pass the buck when things don't work.
So the companies on the front lines, the portals, will have to be able to step up to the support and hand-holding challenge, as services that "just worked" on the PC now need to do the same on the TV, the mobiles and many, many more devices to come.
Fasten your seat-belts.
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