Local portals to catch up with US version

Yahoo plans to significantly develop its international portals, making features available to global customers which are currently limited to US users.

David Rice, vice president of product strategy at Yahoo International, told reporters at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, California that the company had concentrated too much on the US market.

"There was a major focus on the US five years ago," he said, explaining that he wants the foreign portals to catch up within the next 12 months.

"I want to make sure that if you look at the German site or the French site, you find it comparable to the US site."

The international push will require a culture change within the company. While new products were developed by local teams for local markets, the company will now pay more attention to providing translated versions that cater for different geographies.

The international focus aims to allow Yahoo to make the most of expertise in regions that are ahead of other parts of the world.

The company has established a 'mobile centre of excellence' in London, for example, to develop new applications for mobile devices. Yahoo has also opened research centres in Spain and Chile in the past six months.

Rice singled out the Yammy service developed by Yahoo Korea, which allows consumers to upload and share videos.

The service is similar to Google Video and YouTube, but Rice described it as "YouTube on steroids" because it offers better options for content sharing between users.

Rice declined to comment on the company's plans to launch Yammy outside Korea, citing a company policy of not commenting on un-launched products.