After having been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons – announcing layoffs for a 1,000 people and then receiving an unsolicited take-over offer by Microsoft – Yahoo! is trying to revive its sagging fortunes by introducing a new service which promises to revolutionise the way users will communicate.
Yahoo! oneConnect will enable communication via different means such as email, text messaging (SMS), instant messaging (IM) etc. all through mobile phones.
The service will allow users to stay up to date with all their contacts at all times. In other words, Yahoo! oneConnect will be the first service which integrates email, IM, SMS and social networks. Its features include:
- Socially connected address book, allowing users to see all recent activity, photo uploads, etc. across all networks
- Integration of IM and SMS across Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger etc.
- Recent status updates of the user and all his/her contacts on social networks
- Pulse – a dynamic overview of recent actions of friends on social networks
- Favorites – develop messaging shortcuts to reach the most frequent contacts faster
- Social contact card – ability to store all relevant information about all contacts
- Location sensing technology to alert users when contacts are nearby
- Open communications platform bringing the ability to communicate through multiple means including IM, SMS etc.
The above mentioned specifications are still under consideration and are by no means finalised. Several changes may have to be made before the service is actually introduced. Yahoo! oneConnect is expected to be available by the second quarter of 2008, on Yahoo! Go3.0 and on Yahoo!’s new mobile home page.
This is a great step for the future of mobile communications, as it will enable people to stay totally connected even while on the move.
