February 14th, 2008
MWC08: Yahoo oneConnect aggregates all your social networks and more
While there was lots of very cool hardware shown here at the MWC, the software and services are almost more compelling to me since I switch hardware so often. I will have to go back over my notes and figure out what I thought was the best of the show that I saw, but Yahoo’s new oneConnect is one of the top pieces of software/services I saw in action.
The rep was giving a demonstration on a Nokia N95 8GB device and it was running well. I was not allowed to video the service in action, but my buddy Jonathan Greene was able to capture some video of the software working on a PC monitor before anyone said video was not allowed. Yahoo oneConnect solves the problem that many of us social networking fans have and that is to bring all of your social networks into one integrated aggregator where you can view status, view online presence, interact via SMS, IM, email, phone, and more. It seems quite brilliant to me and I am excited about the 2nd quarter release. The first client will be a Java client so it will work very well on the 3G-enabled Nokia N95 that I have as my main device right now.
Threaded conversations are captured and they even have an iPhone-like look to the threads with colored text bubbles on the left and right sides. The thing is that your IM, text, and other clients are all integrated so if you move from your PC with IM to your mobile with text the conversation continues and the oneConnect user would only know the difference by the icon next to the type of message sent. This is awesome and again I am very excited about not having to use 5 or 6 different apps or interfaces to keep in touch with my friends.
Yahoo has partnerships with the following social networks and will be rolling support for them out in stages as well as working on deals with other networks. Bebo, Doppler, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Friendster, hiF, Last.fm, and LinkedIn are announced at this time. You can check out the full press release that has more details.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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