Yahoo Rewires Its Platform With Open Web Strategy

"We are taking open to another place," Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said Thursday in a keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo conference in San Francisco Thursday. "We are literally in the process of rewiring Yahoo from the inside out to create a development platform at Yahoo that will literally open up all the assets of Yahoo to developers across the Web in a way we've never dome before."

With the initiative, the world's largest Web network is moving to transform its giant portal into a more open and interactive site, closer to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, which have gained millions of users.

"We are going to make the consumer experience at Yahoo open and social throughout and provide hooks for developers to do the same," Balogh said.

Yahoo's initiative is called Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS). In one example, Balogh said Yahoo is opening its SearchMonkey Developer Tool for developers to create data services to build applications.

However, Yahoo's bold move came against a backdrop of a possible takeover of the company by Microsoft, which has set a Saturday deadline for Yahoo to agree to a deal or face a hostile takeover.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said on Thursday the company would withdraw its $31 a share cash and stock offer if Yahoo does not start negotiating, Reuters reported. Liddell said Yahoo has "unrealistic expectations" of its value.

"We have been clear that speed is of the essence to make sense," Liddell told investors on a conference call to discuss quarterly results, Reuters reported.

Microsoft is expected to make further comments on its strategy toward Yahoo next week.