Yahoo adding Facebook tie-in to website

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc.'s latest face-lift will include a Facebook touchup.

As part of changes rolling out this week, Yahoo will import personal updates from Facebook's social network for users who want a bridge between two of the world's most popular websites. The Facebook link will need to be turned on by each Yahoo user.

The personal updates, known as a "news feed" in Facebook's parlance, will be available throughout Yahoo's website, including its front page and e-mail service. Other tools will empower people to automatically let their Facebook friends know what they are doing and saying on Yahoo services such as its photo-sharing site, Flickr.

The additional tie-ins follow through on a makeover that Yahoo announced late last year in an effort to make its website more compelling.

Although Yahoo still commands a worldwide Internet audience of nearly 600 million, people have been hanging around for progressively shorter periods during the past few years. One of the reasons is because people increasingly congregate on Facebook to share photos, video clips and music, discuss current events and bond with their families and friends.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is betting that more of its visitors will stay on its website if they can simultaneously monitor what's happening on Facebook. Keeping people on its site longer would give Yahoo more opportunities to sell online ads and revive its revenue growth after an extended slump that has sapped its earnings power and stock price.

- AP