Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) recently launched a mobile version of its popular Flickr program, which can be downloaded for free on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhones and Research In Motion’s (RIMM) Blackberry handsets.
The mobile app enables photo and video searching, sharing, uploading and emailing. It also allows automatic geotagging of photos and videos (depending on the model) and allows the user to add personal commentary.
The Flicker app is available in English, French and traditional Chinese languages for users in the UK, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Canada.
Yahoo has modified its growth strategy this year by increasing focus on the mobile segment. The company revamped the Yahoo Mobile service as a combined application, using mobile versions of Yahoo OneSearch, OnePlace and OneConnect. It makes available search, news, e-mail, social networking, finance, weather, sports scores and other RSS feeds. The company has made the service available as a special app for the iPhone, as well as a browser-based app on more than 400 other mobile devices.
Yahoo also separated the development of mobile applications into general and special categories. The general applications, such as travel, personals or some entertainment sites are available through the browser option. Special applications can be downloaded on specific phones, such as the recently announced Flickr app. The company has also introduced Yahoo Finance and Fantasy Football apps for the iPhone and BlackBerry Bold, Tour and 8900 series.
Yahoo has chosen phones that have the largest number of interactive users, since developing special applications is an expensive affair. Sandeep Gupta, senior director of mobile applications, said that development of applications for other phones like Palm’s (PALM) Pre and Google’s (GOOG) Android-based phones was also underway.
The company has fallen behind third-party application developers that have already launched Mobile Fotos, Darkslide and Flickit. While these Flickr-based apps are likely to increase competition for the company, we expect the Yahoo mobile strategy to be ultimately more successful.
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