Search giant will abandon four-year-old downloadable app to focus on mobile web and smartphones.
Yahoo Go provided access to search, email and third-party services. It worked on more than 400 phones and was often distributed by carriers.
The firm told mocoNews that the emphasis is now on developing services that work either in the mobile browser or inside apps to smartphone platforms like Android and iPhone.
Adam Taggart, Yahoo Mobile’s head of global marketing, said: “These monolithic all-in-one app experiences were a great strategy for the time, and they gained millions of users, but we’ve evolved with the market. Everything we’ve done so far in 2009 is a fulfillment of that strategy.”
It's fair to say that Yahoo has struggled to nail a successful strategy in mobile so far, launching services like Yahoo Go and OneSearch that have been well-received but failed to chime with the public. It's arguable that its stickiest project has been selling mobile advertising rather than search.
Focusing on the always-improving mobile browser makes far more sense for Yahoo, with its background in desktop-based web experiences.
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