Yahoo strengthens Facebook ties
The company is introducing features that will further integrate its services with Facebook, and is renaming its Profiles service as Yahoo Pulse.
Continuing its forays into the social-networking realm, and its announced partnership with Facebook, Yahoo is introducing features that will further integrate its services with Facebook.
Users of both Yahoo and Facebook will soon be able to view their stream of Facebook updates from friends--their Facebook "news feed"--on Yahoo Mail and Yahoo.com. The changes also mean users of Yahoo sites will be able to more easily see the actions they take on those sites reflected on Facebook as well--for instance, posting pictures on Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site Flickr and seeing those shots appear on Facebook.
"More and more, people rely on social sites to share and discover information that matters to them, making Yahoo uniquely positioned to provide people with all of the mainstream methods of content discovery--social, search, communications, and editorial," said Cody Simms, senior director of social platforms and the developer network at Yahoo. "Starting with Facebook, we are bringing all of these elements together to give people one simple, trusted place to share information and connect"
In addition, Yahoo is tweaking its Yahoo Profiles service. Profiles is a social-networking-like service designed to let users post information about themselves and connect with other users. The new incarnation will be named Yahoo Pulse and will incorporate tabs for different social networks, enabling people to, for example, click from Pulse to Facebook and back again for the latest updates from friends. Yahoo Pulse also will feature easier-to-use privacy settings, the company said.
The new features should be made available "In coming days," according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported the changes ahead of Yahoo's announcement.
Yahoo has made social media a focus. In December, the company announced the integration of Facebook Connect across several key Yahoo Web sites including Mail, News, Sports, and Finance. The idea is to drive even more readers to Yahoo's network of sites--the second largest in the U.S.--by making it easier for them to share things they like with their Facebook friends, some of whom may not have seen the Yahoo item otherwise.
In March, Yahoo unveiled features that let Yahoo Mail customers use the service to log in to their Facebook accounts, update their Facebook status, and click directly to the Facebook profiles of friends who've linked their Facebook and Yahoo Mail accounts and who've sent an email message.