Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) is launching its own mobile development platform. Not exactly a direct competitor to Google-backed Android though, but as this FT story says it focuses on a narrower area, and is aimed at developers and publishers who want their apps to run on many different handsets.

Essentially it opens up Yahoo’s Go mobile service, and lets other developers create apps that would reside within it. Yahoo hopes to make money from distributing ads on some of the new applications on the platform. For now, because Yahoo’s mobile software distribution is in early stages, this probably wont have any big-time effect anytime soon.

NYTimes: Although Yahoo Go runs on about 250 mobile devices, and comes preloaded on some phones made by Motorola (NYSE: MOT), LG (SEO: 066570), Samsung and Nokia (NYSE: NOK), carriers in the United States strip the software from the phones. Currently, no American carrier offers phones with the Yahoo software installed, forcing American consumers who want to use Yahoo Go to download it themselves, a requirement that limits its distribution.

AP: The company also will unveil a redesigned mobile home page that will include more content and enable visitors to designate the material that they want highlighted. Yahoo is also releasing an upgrade to its Yahoo Go software.