Yahoo to start optimising for mobile

Yahoo is planning to use Novarra's mobile-optimising technology, as Vodafone did last month, though hopefully without causing so many problems for m-commerce sites.

The technology will automatically repurpose sites which are visited by clicking on search results from Yahoo's oneSearch mobile portal; and should be activated in the next few weeks. The repurposing is optimised for the make and model of handset.

When Vodafone sprung the same technology on their customers it caused serious problems for m-commerce sites, which expected to have a direct connection to the customer's phone. Sites which did their own optimisation were unable to identify the handset, and discovered that Vodafone was altering graphics and refusing to handle files larger than 230KB.

Yahoo's move shouldn't present such problems, as only sites found through oneSearch will be optimised, and customers will be able to bypass the optimisation process, but until the service is live we'll have to wait and see. ®