Yahoo is planning to “reinvent mobile communications” with its new Yahoo oneConnect, even as it fends of Microsoft. Announced Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Yahoo said the oneConnect service “combines integrated mobile messaging with a socially connected address book.”

The company described it as “the first mobile product that aggregates communications tools — e-mail, instant messaging (IM), text messaging (SMS), and social networks — for a new level of convenience in mobile communications.”

Part of Yahoo 3.0

The new service is expected to be rolled out in the second quarter as part of Yahoo Go 3.0 for hundreds of devices and mobile browsers.

With oneConnect, users can integrate activities from their social networks into their address book, so that, for instance, they can see status updates, photo uploads and the “pulse,” or recent activities, of contacts. Supported social networks include Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, among others. A user can plus update his or her own

status, “broadcast” it to friends, and maintain a list of favorite contacts.

Any IM or SMS messaging service, including Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger in addition to Yahoo Messenger, can use oneConnect’s open-application programming interfaces.

And you can know when your friend is in the neighborhood. By using location-sensing technology, oneConnect can help identify nearby contacts, and proximity alerts can be set for a given person.

Discussing Exchange Access

E-mail can be accessed via widgets from various providers, including MSN Hotmail, Gmail and AOL Mail, in addition to Yahoo Mail. Business users will want to be able to access their company accounts through Microsoft Exchange, and Yahoo said it is “in discussions” with DataViz to develop widget versions of its applications for that purpose.

With oneConnect, Yahoo is seeking to ride the wave of activity in social networking. One of the areas under development in social…

Orginal post by Top Tech News