JedFonner.com

I downloaded the recently released Yahoo! Go 2.0 for my phone, and so far I’m impressed. Really impressed. So impressed that I found myself saying something I never thought I’d say, “Why can’t Google create something as cool as what Yahoo’s done?”.

You’re probably thinking, here goes Jed again on some rant about a cool smartphone thingy. Well think again - the best part of this is that it’s not limited to just smart phones. Checkout the carrier/phone compatibility page, but here’s just a few popular phones that are compatible:

• Blackberry Pearl (my phone!)
• Most other Blackberry phones
• Verizon Chocolate
• Palm Treo
• Motorola KRZR (Verizon & Sprint)
• Motorola RAZR (at&t only)
• Samsung SYNC
• Nokia N75, 6126, 6131

The biggest thing for me is the Flickr integration. Yahoo! Go will scan your phone for pictures and let you upload directly to your Flickr account. You can also browse the Flickr site and view others’ pictures. Sadly, you can’t download pictures, but you can view them fullscreen (a la the iPhone). Overall, this is great for mobile bloggers or anyone who likes to take camera phone pictures and put them up on the web.

The next best feature is Yahoo! Go Local. It’s got a similar graphical map to the Google Map app, but it’s also got Yahoo’s extensive network of local business and ratings (great for restaurants). Through the “Today” feature, it also connects with a variety of sources to show you weather, local news, city guides, events, maps, and even Flickr photos for your current location (which is read from your chosen location or GPS).

The rest of the features are “content” related. You can get sports scores, entertainment news, stock quotes, etc. Yahoo! Go lets you configure which sources you pull from, letting you to choose from various Yahoo! sources, your My Yahoo!, or any XML feed you want. It only shows two lines of the headline fit to your screen, however, so those with smaller phones will have to guess what things mean. For instance, complete the following sentence: “Don’t try this at home! Let the professionals remove your test…”. That’s what this story from Digg looks like on my phone. I’m going to pretend that “test…” is “test-taking #2 pencil”.

Overall, the content is compelling, but the nicest part is the interface. It’s smooth, menus work well and are intuitive, and it just looks nice. And it does more than any other mobile app I’ve seen.

The real question is whether this drive more users towards Yahoo. I’m definitely tempted to resume using Flickr (usually I just post to the Photos section of this site). But for heavy mobile users, I can see this as a compelling reason to start using Yahoo, both on the phone and PC, more often.

Regardless, it’s great to see more companies investing heavily in the mobile experience.