During a press conference held yesterday in San Francisco, Yahoo announced its new initiative which will significantly open up the company’s technologies to third party developers and also add social networking features to its services.

"Yahoo reaches one of the largest and most-engaged consumer audiences on the Web. As we enable more choice for our users and infuse social functionality across the Yahoo network, we are delivering on our promise to create the best place for people to start online – and return to again and again – to get everything that is most relevant to them," explained Ash Patel, executive vice president, Yahoo Audience Product Division. He added that by inviting external developers, new opportunities will surface for publishers and advertisers, which will be able to get in touch with people all across the world.

The new Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) initiative will also bring the so-called "universal profile" page, where users can present their identity, activities, interests, and connections. Aside from sharing the profile info among the company’s services such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Toolbar, Yahoo Music, Yahoo TV, and Yahoo Travel, users will also be able to connect with external sites such as Twitter.

Yahoo! Mail Yahoo now incorporates a "smarter" inbox which streamlines the access to a user's most relevant information. The Welcome Page has also been changed and now provides information about the latest email messages and also presents details about the people found in a user’s contact list.

The company also plans other changes which will be included in an update scheduled for release early next year and will be mainly related to a new Toolbar.