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Did you know that just 13 percent of U.S. cell phone subscribers use the Web from their phones? There are plenty of reasons for this, including the inflated price for all-you-can eat data plans. If you’re one of the many without a mobile data plan, Yahoo! wants to make sure it’s not for difficulty of access. Their mobile interface, Yahoo! Go 2.0, provides an extremely easy path to mobile web browsing glory. Even if you’ve never picked up a smartphone of any kind, you’ll be able to navigate the web in no time flat with Yahoo! Go.

But my BlackBerry already has an interface

Yes, the BlackBerry already does come with a very user-friendly OS. However, the OS is like a multi-street intersection. You can go any which way you please, but you might not get to exactly where you want to be. Turning hard left, slight left, going straight, turning hard right, etc. will all bring you to places of note (i.e., on the BlackBerry, your calendar, the Internet, your email, etc.), and you might enjoy those places.

But what if you’re looking for a specific place to go, what are you to do if you’re not completely familiar with the area? You might know where one road takes you, but not the others. That’s where Yahoo! Go comes in.

It’s like having a traffic director or five right at the intersection. Just pull up, roll down your window, and tell the director where it is you want to go. He’ll point you in the right direction, so you’re sure to find exactly what it is you’re looking far.

Sounds good, right? After all, we’d all like traffic directors at places where we’re unfamiliar. Yahoo! Go, though, takes it even further than that. Not only will you be directed to where you want to go, but the traffic director will jump right into the passenger seat with you and act like your personal tour guide.

If you don’t believe me, just ask Cooper. He reviewed the Yahoo! Go service yesterday, and found it smashing.

Yahoo! junkie on your computer? Now you can be on your BlackBerry

While the use of a mobile Internet was once unclear, we’re not seeing the direction. It’s basically moving towards being an extension for our Internet lives when we can’t be at a computer. That is to say, we’re trying to make the mobile Internet everything the “stationary” (for lack of a better term) Internet is. So how does this play into Yahoo! Go?

A growing trend on the Internet is the usage of a service — Google and Yahoo! are the leaders — that amalgamate as much information as possible. By visiting one site, you can receive your news, sports scores, email, check movie times, and search the Internet. This is the goal of Yahoo! Go. By using their interface, you get the best of Yahoo!’s Internet offerings right on your phone.

Use Yahoo! Mail? One click opens your mailbox. Use Yahoo! Search to roam the web? They’ve made it super-easy on mobile devices with the innovative Yahoo! oneSearch. Like to search for movie reviews and buy movie tickets without navigating to multiple websites? Go’s got it.

“We conceived this as the best mobile Internet experience for a phone,” says Adam Taggart, director of product marketing at Yahoo!.

Even more telling was his proclamation of the company’s goals for Go. “We want it to be the next big thing,” he said. “We want it to be relevant for pretty much the same demographics that use the PC web.”

It’s big, but how big?

While specific subscriber data is not available, Taggart says that compared to other similar mobile interfaces, “we are one of the success stories.” This is partly due to the application’s ubiquity: It’s available on more than 250 devices in 17 countries. “We’re pleased with the consumer adoption we’re seeing,” says Taggart.

And why wouldn’t it be big? After all, Yahoo! Go aims to give us what we’re always after: Choice and control. The choices come through services like Yahoo! oneSearch, a multifaceted search tool. As Cooper mentioned, a search for “Casino Royale” brings you hits in movies, maps, images, news stories, wallpapers, and even news articles. The news, sports, entertainment, and finance channels give you a choice in what kind of news you want to digest — because Yahoo! covers it all.

With these choices comes control over what you do and how you do it. The GPS-based map system gives you the control of finding what you’re looking for, no matter where in the world you are. The easy access to your Yahoo! Mail account gives you control over your personal and business dealings (you also have access to all of your Yahoo! Mail folders).

“We see 2007 as a tipping year,” says Taggart. And from what we’ve found, the scales are tipping towards Yahoo! Go.

Extra incentive for Canadian users

In our introduction, we mentioned that there is an artificial inflation of mobile data rates in the U.S., as carriers get a better control of the medium and figure out how to properly give users the best possible experience. In Canada, though, matters are far worse. Mobile data rates are through the roof. But Yahoo! Go might actually help Canadian users keep their data consumption down.

Because it caches much of the information you seek, there is no need to constantly reload data. Once it’s downloaded to your phone’s memory, it can load right from there, so there are no repeat charges. This can be a boon in a market that is absent a cheap all-you-can-eat data plan.

And it works on almost all BlackBerry devices

Are you ready for this monster list of BlackBerrys the Yahoo! Go interface works on? Well, get ready to find your device on the list, because we’re pretty sure it’s on there:

Alltel:
7130e, 8703e — the Pearl was just released, too, so look for its availability on that.

AT&T:
7130c, 8700c, 8800c, Curve 8300, Pearl

Sprint:
7130e, 8703e, 8830

T-Mobile:
8700g, 8705g, 8800, 8320, Pearl

Verizon:
7130e, 8703e, 8830

Yahoo! Go creates an ideal mobile Internet experience, giving you more choices than any other application of its type, and putting you in full control over those choices. Check out Cooper’s review for a walk-through of the features, and check out the Yahoo! Go page, which details the features even further — you know, if you’re a heavy detail kind of person. Which, of course, is the ideal user of Yahoo! Go

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