Yahoo Cozies Up to Bloggers

Yahoo announced a new feature for its My Web 2.0 "social search engine" on Friday that's meant to appeal to bloggers and Web site publishers.

The new trait is further evidence that Internet search engines are embracing blogs, which are online diaries on any number of topics with links directing visitors to the operators favorite Internet locales. There are an estimated 20 million blogs.

With its new feature, Yahoo is exposing blogs to its My Web 2.0 community of users, the size of which a Yahoo does not divulge.

My Web 2.0 sets-up people with their own Web sites to store and organize favorite Internet findings. Yahoo calls My Web 2.0 a social search engine because users get to contribute their listings to a communal database that's searchable by others in the My Web universe. The benefit is "access to Web content that's ranked by search technology," Yahoo says.

The new attribute announced Friday is a "Save to My Web" button that's displayed on Web sites or blogs. The feature lets My Web 2.0 users instantly add the site to their collection during their Web wanderings, rather than a more cumbersome alternative involving a visit to their My Web 2.0 Web page. Bloggers and Web site operators must first add the element onto their sites.

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