After losing some of its luster on the personal computer, embattled Internet icon Yahoo Inc. is hoping to outshine Google and other rivals on the mobile phone.
In a move announced Monday, Yahoo opened its mobile platform so outside programmers can develop new applications for Yahoo pages accessed on mobile handsets. Yahoo hopes the mini-applications, known as “widgets,” will help attract more on-the-go users, which will bring the company more money from advertising.
The Sunnyvale-based company also unveiled a redesigned home page for mobile phones that includes more content and enables visitors to designate material they want highlighted.
And it released an upgrade to its “Go” software that is supposed to facilitate Web surfing on mobile phones and enable Yahoo to show ads with graphics.
Jerry Yang, a Yahoo co-founder who took over as chief executive nearly seven months ago as part of the company’s turnaround efforts, discussed the changes Monday during an address at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
“We’re committed to creating the best and richest mobile experience for all consumers,” Yang said.
Yahoo believes its Go software, introduced at the same Las Vegas convention two years ago, gave the company an early advantage in a high-stakes battle to deliver more advertising and Internet services to the 3 billion mobile phone subscribers around the world.
But Yahoo is a step behind rival Google Inc. in the push to persuade programmers to develop applications for its mobile platform.
Mountain View-based Google began wooing outside programmers two months ago when it announced a long-anticipated mobile software package called “Android” that is expected to hit the market during the second half of this year.
Yahoo is betting more programmers will be interested in working on its mobile platform because it has the potential to reach billions of phones, said Yahoo spokesman Cory Pforzheimer. Google’s Android software is expected to be…