We recognize that for many of you around the world, the Yahoo! homepage – whether you’re seeing it on a computer or a mobile device – is Yahoo!. And we know you all have vastly different interests and “must-see” places you navigate to online. We can make our homepage better reflect this reality and, as many of you know, we’ve been hard at work on improving both our mobile and Web homepages.

What’s new, you ask?
We recently made the new Yahoo! Mobile (http://m.yahoo.com) available on the mobile Web across more than 300 devices and as an Apple iPhone app – both are available in eight countries, with more launching soon. We’ve moved out of beta and are in the process of rolling it out as our default mobile homepage.

Like the PC homepage we’re testing, the new Yahoo! Mobile has a more feature-rich design, letting you bring together your favorite content and services from across the Web, making it more personally relevant. For example, my experience is customized with my Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! Messenger accounts, as well as my various stocks, favorite blog feeds, and weather from my favorite cities. The beauty of it is that you can customize the experience to exactly what you want and add anything to the page.

As for the Web, we recently started testing some new designs based on your feedback. We recognize that many of you like your homepage just the way it is, thank-you-very-much, so the overall look and feel of the page will be familiar. But take a closer look, and you’ll see that we’ve made some fundamental improvements and packed in features that are easy to use and easy to make your own – things you have told us you want.

The “My Favorites” area on the left side of the page includes an applications “dashboard” with the ability to preview, interact with or navigate to your favorite sites – whether they’re on Yahoo! or elsewhere on the Web. It’s all fully customizable.

Here’s some of what’s new and cool:

• Lots more apps: We’re testing a growing library of apps that let you get more done without leaving the page. Some of these apps include eBay and MySpace, and content sites like USA Today and NPR. We also have newly developed apps for popular Yahoo! services like Messenger, Movies and Flickr.
• Social pulse: A new Yahoo! Updates app lets you keep up with your friends’ online activities directly on the homepage – such as a recently Buzzed article or a video uploaded to YouTube.
• Easier email: We’ve separated your individual email accounts as distinct apps, rather than a combined inbox, so that it’s faster and easier to get to the exact mail you want. This was a request we heard repeatedly during testing.

What about local personalization?
As a global company, it’s critical that we create localized homepages, and we’re testing them now in France, India and the UK. While we’ll provide a consistent experience across all our global homepages in terms of design, they will be customized with information and apps that are locally relevant. For example, the new homepage in India will include a Cricket app and a whole host of others that are India-centric, while the UK site will include apps such as underground alerts, news from the BBC, and more.

This screenshot shows London Underground alerts from Transport for London:

We’re excited about the new direction of our homepages, especially because you’ve helped us build them. The designs being tested are changing frequently based on your input. Stay tuned for updates in the months ahead as we roll them out more broadly.

Tapan Bhat
SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, Yahoo!