I'm just back from a trip to Florida, during which I had a chance encounter with one of JetBlue's new BetaBlue planes, equipped with free WiFi access.

I somehow missed the much documented inaugural flight, so I was shocked and psyched to see the BetaBlue pamphlet, but saddened to read that the WiFi provided no actual web surfing, but only email and instant messaging…and only through Yahoo!?!

According to Engadget, "If all goes well in what is admittedly a beta test, more aircraft will receive the WiFi makeover, and more features […] will be rolled out, along with additional service providers besides Yahoo."

Well that's a relief! JetBlue, if you're listening, keep in mind that we'd rather have the option of paying to get service-agnostic access than be limited to an account with a contacts list that's about three years outdated, eh?

Of course offering WiFi at all — especially free WiFi — puts JetBlue light years beyond any other airline (and just reinforces their status as my all-time favorite airline), but seriously: We get that you don't want to give unlimited internet access, but don't tell us whose servers will be holding our emails and IMs.

Oh, and btw: What on earth does free Yahoo! email and IMing on your planes have to do with an RSS icon? If we can only log into Yahoo! email and Yahoo! messenger, we pretty much by definition cannot access our ballooning number of unread items in Google Reader. Ya know?