Yahoo extends social drive with Twitter deal

Yahoo users can now Tweet from their homepage

Yahoo has announced a partnership with Twitter to allow users to access personal Twitter feeds from their Yahoo homepage, as well from Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Sports.

The deal furthers Yahoo's promise to become more social, and should increase its advertising strength.

"People will be able to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo in their Twitter stream, so they can easily share their Yahoo experiences with their friends and followers on Twitter," said Yahoo.

The web giant explained that its search engine and news site will feature real-time public Twitter updates across a variety of topics, in a similar way to Google.

"Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less: We're turning the key to the online social universe. You will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Yahoo's consumer products group.

"We're also simplifying people's lives by bringing their social worlds, and the world, together for easy access."

However, Yahoo said that the partnership with Twitter does not rule out its launch of a similar service in the micro-blogging market.

Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz spoke last March of Yahoo's intention to partner with social networking sites, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Skype, to provide a seamless experience when users move from Yahoo to more social places.

The company revamped its homepage in July 2009 for the first time in years with an advertising campaign called 'It's You!'.

The new homepage was designed to act as a portal for web users to feed in content from elsewhere on the web. The aim was to limit web users moving away from Yahoo to more social sites in order to extend their exposure to the site's advertisements.

Yahoo announced in December that its sites would be accessible through Facebook Connect.

David McDowell, product marketing director at Yahoo, explained that Yahoo had chosen to integrate with Twitter and Facebook first because they were the "most relevant services".

McDowell would not comment on whether Yahoo is working on future social partnerships.