Yahoo to get up close and personal

Some good blog fodder from today's Yahoo 2009 preview with developments centred on relevancy, open internet and social media.

What does it mean? The search giant is taking those cornerstones and applying them across its new homepage, search, mobile and mail.

The result is consumers being able to aggregate search, mail, social networking sites and anything else targeted and relevant to them in one place.

The new homepage (currently in beta) enables users to plug in applications such as eBay and flickr from a library. Search developments include much richer, relevant results as well as anticipating what consumers are trying to find. The search service is also being opened up so developers and other companies can use it within their sites. And mobile developments include quicker access from the phone's menu and providing users with relevant answers and valuable information.

The thinking behind the developments is the consumer quest for 'return on attention' - a higher return on the time we invest - here's wikipedia says.

Yahoo research shows 68% of us feel it is getting more difficult to to balance life and work, 89% of us have information fatigue syndrome and 63% are worried that if we switch off we will miss something.

So, according to Yahoo Europe marketing man Kristof Fahy the search giant has to continue to do the basics really well and think about new areas such as personalisation, relevance, being open...

The developments look slick so watch this space as releases are slated for end of the year/early next year.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution