Educational Institutions Use Yahoo!(R)'S Mobile Development Platform to Create Mobile Widgets for Leading Corporate Brands

Yahoo! Announces the Winners of the Inaugural "Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards" in Singapore

SINGAPORE/Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced the winners of the inaugural Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards (YMDA), the first of several competitions showcasing innovation and talent of Singapore students, who created mobile-optimised applications using Yahoo!'s latest mobile development platform -- Yahoo! Blueprint(TM).

A total of 24 teams from six Singapore tertiary institutes participated in the competition to build the best mobile widgets for four corporate brands -- DBS Bank, Kellogg Asia, Malaysia Airlines, and UEEEU.com. The participating schools were Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Polytechnic (NP), Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NAP), Singapore Polytechnic (SP), and Temasek Polytechnic (TP).

The teams started developing their mobile widgets after the YMDA kick-off meeting in September, where they received instructions and widget requirements from Yahoo! and the four sponsor companies.

All teams presented their mobile widgets in front of a judging panel comprising experts from Yahoo!, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), and the sponsor companies. Submissions were judged on usability, quality, innovation, effective use of technology, and relevance to the companies and their customers.

"This competition is aligned with Yahoo!'s company-wide strategy to open up our platform to third party publishers, developers and advertisers," said David Ko, senior vice president of Connected Life, Yahoo! Inc. "We believe that Yahoo! Blueprint is the best way to create mobile Internet services and run across hundreds of devices and reach hundreds of millions of users, offering consumers the best mobile Internet experience, regardless of device. We expect this will change the world of mobile development moving forward.

"Through this competition, Yahoo! is proud to be able to play its role in connecting Singapore's next generation of developers with some of the world's leading corporate brands, as we continue to enable and lead the mobile ecosystem", added Ko.

Corporate sponsors' winning mobile widgets

At today's YMDA award ceremony, the four winning widgets were announced, one for each of the sponsor companies.

  The four winning YMDA widgets for 2008 are:

  -- For DBS Bank -- "Simple" from Nanyang Technological University,
     developed a mobile widget to help customers conveniently locate
     branches and ATMs, and access information on bank products and credit
     card privileges
  -- For Kellogg Asia -- "The Jinx" from Temasek Polytechnic created a
     widget that prompts people to take part in the Kellogg's "Special K
     Challenge."  Their mobile widget includes calorie and BMI calculators,
     healthy tips, Special K recipes, and a personal progress planner
  -- For Malaysia Airlines -- "We Mobile" from Singapore Polytechnic
     developed a mobile widget to encourage travel with Malaysian Airlines.
     Their mobile widget incorporated interesting and useful features to
     assist users with their travel plans.
  -- For UEEEU.com -- "Chlorophyll Studios" from Nanyang Polytechnic created
     a travel-related mobile widget to make customers' travel experience
     more convenient and enjoyable. Their mobile widget includes a language
     translator, a world time indicator, destination guides, hotel/vehicle
     search and reservation functions, and a travel planning tool

Members from the four winning widget teams each received a cash prize and will have their winning widgets showcased on the mobile widget gallery in Yahoo! Go 3.0(TM).

Sponsors' quotes:

"A growing number of consumers today are looking to have banking information and services at their fingertips. Therefore, the idea of delivering our banking services to consumers directly to their mobile phones using mobile widgets is very exciting," said Jowena Liang, SVP & Head of Consumer Marketing & Internet Banking, Consumer Banking Group, DBS Bank. "We saw a number of excellent widgets but in the end we chose the mobile widget created by the team "Simple" from Nanyang Technological University. The widget interface is simple to use and makes it easy for consumers to access and request information from their mobile phone. The creation of mobile widgets fits perfectly with DBS' strategy of providing convenient access to our customers across a multi-channel distribution platform."

"Kellogg Asia is happy to take part in the inaugural Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards. We're excited about the possibilities that the Yahoo! Blueprint. In this case, we wanted a mobile widget to help promote our 'Special K Challenge' -- a challenge aimed at consumers to see if they can lose 2 kilograms in 2 weeks by replacing 2 meals a day with 2 bowls of Special K," said Robert Woodall, Vice President, Marketing & Innovation, Kellogg Asia- Pacific. "We selected the mobile widget developed by "The Jinx" team from Temasek Polytechnic which will help prompt people to take part in the Special K Challenge as well as keep them motivated throughout the duration. Kellogg Asia is proud to be a part of the dawn of a new era for the mobile phone -- as we believe mobile widgets will change the way consumers use their mobiles."

"UEEEU.com is specialized in online travel. We are excited to be part of the inaugural Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards. With UEEEU's vast collection of travel resources, the students have made full use of Yahoo! Blueprint and UEEEU's booking engine technology to create interesting mobile widgets. They not only fulfilled the requirements given to them, but also built extra features to make their widgets more attractive. We picked the winning mobile widget developed by "Chlorophyll Studios" from Nanyang Polytechnic. Through mobile widgets, we are able to bring UEEEU.com's online travel experience to mobile phones, providing our customers an entirely new way to access our services", said Ralph Shao, Director of Corporate Marketing, UEEEU.com."

"Best in Show" Mobile Widget

From the winning widgets, an overall "Best in Show" mobile widget was chosen by Yahoo! and the IDA. This year's YMDA "Best in Show" winning team is "Simple" from Nanyang Technological University.

"We saw a number of excellent mobile widgets during the 'Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards' competition but in the end the widget by team "Simple" from Nanyang Technological University represented the best technological expertise, quality of design, creativity and vision across all the widgets," said Matthias Kunze, managing director for Yahoo! Connected Life in Asia.

Blueprint enables the creation of mobile content

Yahoo! Blueprint is an easy-to use, versatile and feature-packed platform for developers to create and distribute their applications to wider audiences, and was used to power the latest mobile widgets and applications at the YMDA competition. Apart from building widgets, developers are also able to use Yahoo! Blueprint to create mobile websites and standalone applications.

Yahoo! Blueprint is available to advertisers, publishers, as well as developers, to mobilise content and services. For more details on Yahoo! Blueprint, please refer to the press release titled "Yahoo!(R) Expands Capabilities of Blueprint, the Mobile Development Platform"

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

For more information on Yahoo! Mobile please visit: http://mobile.yahoo.com/newsroom

  For more information, please contact:

  Yahoo!, Connected Life Asia
   Priscilla Tan
   Tel:   +65-9853-9149
   Email: pristan@yahoo-inc.com

  XPR Pte Ltd
   Adrian Lee
   Tel:   +65-9423-0109
   Email: adrian@xpr.com.sg

Source: Yahoo!

CONTACT: Priscilla Tan of Yahoo!, Connected Life Asia, +65-9853-9149,
pristan@yahoo-inc.com; Adrian Lee of XPR Pte Ltd, +65-9423-0109,
adrian@xpr.com.sg