5. Yahoo Plans to Automate Your Information

Jerry Yang used his CES keynote to launch the latest version of Yahoo’s smartphone search software at CES. Yahoo Go! 3 has sleeker graphics, a cache to remember what you last looked up and quick access to key functions for each section, so you can send a message without actually opening the email widget. But the features that mean the most for Yahoo’s long-term plans are the combination of services on the new Yahoo mobile home page and the fact that they don’t all come from Yahoo.

Starting with mobile widgets from eBay, MySpace and MTV News, Yang pledged to open up all of Yahoo Go! to the world. And while the beta starts with only 30 Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Nokia devices, it will be available on over 500 phones eventually. Motorola, LG and Access (the new owners of the Palm OS) will put Yahoo Mobile Widget support natively in future phones, too. In the long run, Yahoo aims to offer not just an application but a universal mobile development platform with links to the same services on the main Yahoo site, which will resemble Google’s Android.

Still further ahead, Yang predicts services that combine and filter information automatically, creating what he calls “a smarter, more relevant inbox for all of the people and places that the Web offers.” He showed a proof of concept that takes IM, voicemail and text messages as well as email and prioritizes them based on whom you’re connected to in social networks like MySpace and Linked In as well as how often you exchange messages with someone. Messages in different services would be linked automatically into conversations if they deal with the same topic, like organizing a vacation or a get-together with friends.

And if users are willing to share personal information and preferences, Yahoo could recommend a restaurant that would suit the tastes of all the users and send personalized eVite invitations to them. It could show photographs from flickr, reviews from your favorite newspaper or news from the local vegetarian society depending on your profile. This isn’t a service Yahoo has in development, but it’s a good example of the kind of next-generation tools Microsoft and Google are also talking about.