This time last year, as Yahoo announced its Connected Life strategy with Tom Cruise and Ellen DeGeneres on hand, Marco Boerries took the stage to introduce Yahoo Go, most notably the mobile app that represented a large chunk of that vision. The Java app would only work on Nokia Series 60 phones at first. Monday at CES Boerries and Yahoo announced Yahoo Go Mobile 2.0 anchored by a new feature called oneSearch — and with it a batch of OEM deals that expands Go Mobile’s reach to several dozen handsets now (Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Blackberry, an OEM to be named later) and, says Boerries, more than 400 by year’s end. It’s like the saying: a dollar here, a dollar there, and soon you’re talking real money.
Boerries and I spoke at the Yahoo tent in front of the Central Hall a few hours after his appearance in the Motorola keynote. What some, including Rafat, see as a first round that fizzled when the new app failed to expand to enough handsets during the first year, Boerries views as “a steppingstone” for a work in progress that simply is entering a new phase. He suggests the the difference is marked by the way Yahoo promoted the two: Go 1.0 had to be sought out; this version has marquee billing on Yahoo’s valuable front page. That means its ready for prime time in Yahoo’s view.
I asked if too big a deal was made too soon last year. (Something I wonder as I hear many CES announcements that are tres cool but limited in scope.) He quickly replied, “No, I don’t think so. It was a start and it was a very successful device again with the device we targeted. … We didn’t overdo it last year. We didn’t push it.”
oneSearch: Boerries said Yahoo was ready to launch a new version of Go in September but held back to include oneSearch “because it makes all the difference. … Search is so critical.” A GPS-enabled version of oneSearch is on the futures list.
Advertising: Advertising is fully integrated already, he explained, showing house ads that mark where paid ads will go. Performance-based advertising is also in place. Boerries: “The service is free and it’s going to be monetized by advertising.” Some of the OEMs and carriers could share in that revenue depending
on the way various deals are structured.
New Yahoo: Boerries says Yahoo’s new structure makes his life easier. His team is part of the new Audience division (still no leader for that, by the way.) Instead of talking to execs in four places about monetization, he can now work with Sue Decker’s division. Instead of dealing with multiple people about the network, he deals with one.
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