Yahoo Opens Its Home Page to Customization

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) said its newly redesigned home page will soon be more open than ever for business.

Specifically, the Web giant announced integration of its Yahoo Application Platform (YAP) with the home page, which means its developers,
advertisers and publishers can customize it.

Developers can create a more customizable and “personally relevant” experience for Yahoo’s over 118 million monthly home page users across the U.S., the company said in a statement. Yahoo said it gets over 330 million unique visitors per month worldwide.

Yahoo also said it has lined up several partners who have already used YAP to develop custom pages and are now included in its homepage app gallery.

The personal
finance site Mint.com, retailer Target and movie community site Flixster are among the 13 new apps. The
company said there are almost 400 apps out already, worldwide, for Yahoo’s
home page.

Yahoo also said that it would be offering developers the chance to create front-page applications based on YAP at its Open Hack Day in New York next week.

The news comes at time when Yahoo is making a concerted push to emphasize
its value to consumers to as a starting point on the Web — as a true home page from which they can access an array of Yahoo and non-Yahoo (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) services.

Last week, Yahoo launched an ambitious $100 million global branding
campaign that carries the tagline “It’s you” to underscore the idea that
users can tailor the Yahoo sites to their needs.

Yahoo suggested that the YAP release will help developers and publishers drive traffic to their sites, acquire new user and increase brand awareness. There are also tools for generating revenue by displaying ads and virtual goods.

“We’re working on an array of additional developer monetization opportunities — these will be available soon,” Yahoo said in a
blog post.