One of the key dynamics that is re-shaping the Web these days is “social” – social networks, social graph, social bookmarking, social news, social gaming. A rapidly growing segment of Web users is making connections, discovering new things based on feeds, and staying on top of relationships using a variety of social destinations and services.

That’s why we’ve been hard at work integrating a new social foundation into Yahoo!. Today, as part of this, we’re upgrading profiles.yahoo.com with a new universal profile. Available in beta to all of our users around the world, Yahoo! Profiles is a centralized control panel that lets you manage your identity, activities, interests, and connections across Yahoo! — and eventually the entire Web. The new profile is a key element of our Yahoo! Open Strategy, rewiring Yahoo! to make it more open and social.

I want to make it clear that this new profile is not intended to be a new social destination on Yahoo!. Rather, our plan is to integrate “social” as a central dimension into the services you use every day. For example, if you’re on Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, you’re already seeing Yahoo! Buzz, Mybloglog, and Twitter updates as part of your friends’ status messages. Soon you’ll see social capabilities added elsewhere across Yahoo!, beginning with places where you start your day. The new homepage we’re testing will soon have an application that lets you stay up to date with what your friends are doing across the Web. And Yahoo! Mail will be delivering a smarter inbox, displaying emails from your most important connections first.

As you set up your new profile, you’ll see that we’re starting out with the basics. You can enter information about yourself (location, work experience, interests, photo, etc.) and add connections from your Yahoo! Address Book. As we start adding social capabilities to services like the Yahoo! homepage, Mail, and Messenger, your profile information will be used as the trusted source of identity and social preferences. This will be extended across the Web as developers begin using the open APIs we’re offering as part of our Yahoo! Open Strategy, allowing them to build more social experiences based on your preferences. (Note: The updated profile will not immediately be used by Yahoo! 360. More details are explained here.)

Ultimately, our goal is to unify your social experience and connections not only on Yahoo!, but anywhere you travel across the Web. Rolling out the new profile today is a just first step, and I look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming months as we “light up” social experiences at Yahoo!.

Jim Stoneham
Vice President, Communities