Integrated Service Gives Users Real-Time Access to AT&T Yahoo Portal, Communications Services and Customized Content
AT&T Inc., Cingular Wireless and Yahoo! Inc., of late announced the availability of AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile, the first-of-its-kind integrated service that gives consumers real-time access to their favorite AT&T Yahoo! Internet customized online content, services and community on a wireless phone.
Cingular Wireless L.L.C. subscribers can use their phones to access photos, e-mail, instant messaging and address books from their Yahoo Inc. accounts.
The AT&T Yahoo Go Mobile service is part of the Yahoo Go brand, the Internet media company’s push to make its services available to users on a variety of devices from mobile phones to televisions.
"It is the first kind of baby steps toward this whole concept of an anytime-anywhere device," said Matt Davis, director of consumer multi-play services at IDC, a market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts.
AT&T is now offering the AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile service on the Nokia 6682 handset from Cingular within the AT&T traditional 13-state service area. The service will also be available in certain Cingular stores in the Austin, Columbus and Los Angeles markets. Subscribers can also receive custom news, weather and sports.
The phone also includes an MP3 music player, data storage with removable memory and a digital voice recorder.
Cingular, the nation’s largest wireless company, is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth Corp.
The offering, initially announced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show, is only now available for consumers to purchase pre-loaded on handsets, marks yet another way for Cingular users to receive custom Internet information on their phones. Last fall, the carrier overhauled its MediaNet service, expanding the offering to include personalized news, sports, weather and financial information as well as a local search engine. InfoSpace Inc. powers the MediaNet service.
The AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile service is the first time that AT&T Yahoo! Internet subscribers will be able to seamlessly access, in a single mobile application, a comprehensive set of their personalized AT&T Yahoo! services, including Mail, Photos, Address Book, Calendar, Messenger and Web, Image and Local search, as well as customized news, weather and sports.
The AT&T Yahoo! communications services are also connected to the built-in e-mail, messaging, address book and calendar applications on the mobile phone, giving consumers’ one reliable source for the information they find most vital. For example, if a user loses his mobile device, his saved contact information will still be available to him on the Web and easily synched with a new mobile device.
We are blurring the lines between the PC and the wireless phone so that consumers can stay in touch, check e-mail, get updates on news and weather—minute to minute, day by day—regardless of where they are or what screen they are watching, said Scott Helbing, chief marketing officer of AT&T’s consumer division.
For AT&T, this new application supports an initiative by the company to integrate AT&T services and content across the three screens that many consumers value most today: the PC, the cell phone and the TV. For Yahoo!, this new service is part of a suite of innovative applications designed to extend the reach of Yahoo!’s services beyond the browser.
We are helping our customers enjoy the digital lifestyle by giving them virtually anywhere, anytime access to their already personalized and customized Web-based communications and entertainment services, said Helbing.
Consumers want to connect to their favorite Web services on their mobile devices, and AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile makes it easy, said Marco Boerries, senior vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo!.
We have created a service unmatched in the mobile marketplace and are excited to give consumers a single way to simply connect to all of their information and content while on the go.
The service also follows Yahoo’s strategy of partnering with operators to garner premium placement on the deck. Google Inc., on the other hand, is hoping to lure wireless users away from carrier decks with a portfolio of offerings including a customized wireless Web home page.
AT&T is selling the cutting-edge Nokia 6682 handset through its sales channels for $199.99 after a $50 Nokia mail-in rebate, with a new two-year subscription to a Cingular service plan. The AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile application is pre-loaded on the handsets at no additional cost.
Cingular’s standard wireless data usage charges apply, and Cingular Wireless voice service and data plans are sold separately.
The unlimited monthly service costs about $19.99 a month, an AT&T spokesman said.
To learn more about the service and to check availability, please visit www.att.com/gomobile or http://go.yahoo.com.