After months of preamble, Yahoo on Monday flipped the on switch for a massive project to increase activity, and advertising on its Internet sites through social connections and online applications.
The company has been working mostly behind the scenes to build what it calls the Yahoo Open Strategy, but now the strategy"s changes will become evident to U.S. users of some of Yahoo"s main properties such as Yahoo Mail, My Yahoo, and Yahoo"s music and TV sites. In addition, the company will begin previewing a new Yahoo Toolbar later this week.
When asked about the Yahoo Open Strategy goals, Ash Patel, executive vice president of Yahoo"s audience products division, said that the company wanted to establish a social dimension. And to attract programmers who can build applications on Yahoo properties, Patel said that the company wanted to engage with the developer community and open up the power of Yahoo"s products and platforms.
Yahoo Mail, which according to ComScore has about 275 million active users each month, gets some significant changes, with more to come.