April 5; 2009; BANGALORE:  In a throwback to the classic simplicity of  of its early days as the Internet's most trafficked portal, Yahoo has created a new  mobile gateway  to all its most popular services: OneSearch,YahooMail, News, YahooAnswers, Astrology, Cricket, Finance.... leaving users the choice to mix-n-match  these services with their favourite web destinations including social networking sites.
 
Yahoo!Mobile for Web  is available this week for over 300  devices that  come with HTML-based browsing capability -- and  for the Apple iPhone. There is a special India version  and when we checked on Sunday, the top favourites were the India-New Zealand cricket test,  Kareena Kapoor, Formula One, south star Trisha  and Angelina Jolie.  You can enlist for RSS feeds, weather, stocks and shares news, horoscopes or whatever  -- and  the portal  reshapes standard desktop browser offerings into the linear,scrollable, format that works best on the small screens of mobile phones.
 
The application can be  accessed at http://in.new.m.yahoo.com/
 
 
ELECTION SPECIAL
 
Yahoo has  also launched   a special portal for the upcoming  Indian General Elections  ( http://in.elections.yahoo.com/  ). It features election schedules,  online polls,  analyses by experts culled from all major media names;  up to the minute news sourced from multiple agencies, and  lighter offerings that include dashboards to create your own election manifesto.( What would you do with it? Maybe confront your local candidates when  they come calling, like a popular TV ad now playing?).
 
For those who for ideological reasons don't like to depend on the various party-sponsored web sites, the Yahoo offering may come as a refreshingly neutral offering.