Yahoo!, Facebook snuggle closer

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 03 December 2009 01:55

Your IT - Home IT

Yahoo! plans to extend the integration between its services and Facebook.

Yahoo! and Facebook already provide users with a degree of integration between the companies' services. For example, Facebook status can be updated from the Yahoo! home page, there is provision to "Share on Facebook" from various Yahoo! services, and Yahoo! Contacts is accessible from Facebook.

Yahoo! has announced additional integrations that will begin during the first half of 2010.

According to company officials, the changes will allow users to connect with Facebook friends on Yahoo!, view a feed of their friends' related activity on Yahoo!, and share Flickr and other content with their friends on Facebook.

"With this integration, we are opening the door for two of the Internet's largest online communities to make it easier for people to stay connected," said Jim Stoneham, vice president of Communities for Yahoo!.

"It also enables us to further the Yahoo! Open Strategy, which is aimed at making experiences dramatically more open, social and personally relevant for the more than 500 million people that visit Yahoo! each month."

Ethan Beard, director of Facebook Developer Network, said "As one of the largest sites on the Web, Yahoo! is an ideal partner to integrate with Facebook Connect, enabling users to share meaningful content with their friends on Facebook from Yahoo's wide range of category-leading properties."