The dust has settled, and Yahoo is out to prove that it doesn’t need Microsoft, Google, or anyone else in order to maintain its Internet dominance…er…level of mediocrity.  I mean, let’s face it, Yahoo just does not carry the same weight it once did.  But that is not to say Yahoo does not still have any winners in its arsenal.  In fact, the free Yahoo! Go has proven itself, in the past, to be an outstanding all-in-one Internet resource.  This latest version sees some significant changes to the interface as well as some wild customization options.  Let’s take a closer look.

The new interface takes full advantage of the growing genre of Cloud applications and puts you right in the middle of the clouds…literally.  The screen depicts and image of the sun rising over the clouds.  I am not so sure what kind of message Yahoo might have been trying to send with this image, but there are a few obvious (and not necessarily subtle) interpretations of this imagery which come immediately to mind.

Resting above the clouds (again, more imagery) is the Yahoo Widget Carousel.  This contains all of your access points to a variety of services and information.  From here, by default, you can access:

• Yahoo Mail (but not other online or POP3 mail accounts
• Your Flickr Photo Account
• Maps with driving directions (but not linked to your GPS)
• Weather
• A variety News services, divided into
•    — News

     — Sports

     — Finances

     — Entertainment News

Just spin the carousel using the D-Pad or your touch screen to move from one widget to the next.  As you stop on a widget, a dialogue will appear above it with the latest status information from within that widget.  Weather, for example, shows the current weather conditions in your selected city.

I was really impressed by the variety of options available in each of these widgets.  Many programs like this allow you to use the default information feed (in this case Yahoo News), but make it difficult to add other sources.  Yahoo! Go 3 not only allows you to check any news source you want, it makes it easy to do so.

In sports, for example, you can add your favorite teams to the widget, so you will always be kept up to date on the latest news, scores, and transactions.  This is a great way to find information about those out of state teams, without wading through a pile of irrelevant garbage about the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers.

Likewise, in the news widgets, you can add your own news sources or RSS feeds easily.  I was most impressed by the incorporation of Yahoo! OneSearch which can watch for keywords or “snippets” and grab articles using the keywords you set.  You can also add any RSS feed here, to be displayed a news source.  I was a bit disappointed, however, to find that RSS feeds must be inputted individually.  There was no option of importing an OPML file with all of your feeds from another source.

I was a bit surprised on the maps, however.  While Yahoo’s maps did offer a wide variety of features, including a city guide, nearby resources, and driving directions; it did not connect to your GPS.  It would have been nice if Yahoo could have connected to a GPS, and been a true competitor for Google Maps and Live Search.  This lack of GPS support left it functionally behind the others, however, I was impressed by the myriad of other  features offered by the maps widget.

Of course, there is a lot more information out there than what can be offered in this small assortment of widgets, which brings us to the second major upgrade in Yahoo! Go 3.  With this version, Yahoo now offers a full assortment of customizable widgets which you can add to your account.  These widgets can add access to a myriad of your favorite online resources, including Facebook, eBay, Shopping resources, Wikipedia, and more (including the VH1: I Love The ‘80s trivia game widget, below.)  I was really impressed by the scope and breadth of the widgets offered. 

I do hope Yahoo! continues to expand its library of widgets.  This easy customization is really what sets Yahoo! Go 3 apart from a number of similar programs.  I like a program that makes it easy for you to access the information you need; not one that makes it easy to access whatever limited information they choose to provide.  The new interface and customizable widgets served this purpose almost perfectly.  Of course, in a program like this, the more widgets they can offer the better.  I would also like to have the option of accessing my other mail accounts, such as Gmail, Live Mail, or Hotmail (not to mention POP3) so that I could have everything all in one place. 

I really had the impression that Yahoo! was trying to send a message with this program.  They are still a player here.  They don’t need Microsoft or Google or anyone else in order to make a competitive program.  All I can say is, “Message received.  Loud and clear!”

Yahoo! Go 3 is a free download for your Windows Mobile device (all flavors).  Just point your mobile browser to m.yahoo.com and get the entire Internet to go, right in the palm of your hand.

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