Yahoo is testing a more streamlined version of its home page that provides users with one-click access to multiple e-mail accounts and third-party applications.
“We’re working on a new home page that will help you get more out of the Internet, make more of your precious time, and make sense of all the things going on in your world,” said Tapan Bhat, Yahoo’s senior vice president for front doors, communities and network services. “We’re testing with a fraction of home-page visitors chosen at random, starting in the U.S., U.K., France and India.”
More Preview Applications
Yahoo’s revamped page integrates AOL and Google e-mail accounts in a dashboard area on the left side. The company said it expects to embrace additional e-mail accounts.
AOL announced much the same strategy for its home page earlier this month. “We know that consumers today have multiple e-mail accounts on different services to keep tabs on daily, and we want to make it easier for them,” said Bill Wilson, AOL’s executive vice president of programming.
Yahoo is also looking to tap into the expanding Web universe of social networking. The search-engine provider recently launched oneConnect, a free iPhone application that supports social networking on platforms such as Facebook and MySpace.
Besides e-mail, Yahoo hopes to keep its existing users happy and attract new ones by placing SMS and IM messaging, and perhaps even Twitter, on a single page. Yahoo also plans to open its home page to the Yahoo Application Platform so third-party developers and publishers can submit preview applications as optional customization choices.
“We plan to add plenty more preview applications in the future, so that you don’t have to spend as much time jumping from site to site just to stay plugged in,” Bhat said. “As we continue evolving the test versions, you’ll also notice…