Uneasy Lies the Yahoo That Wears Crown

With Google, Facebook, and MySpace gnawing at its top-dog status, Yahoo is reinventing some foundation applications to make them appeal to a new generation of users, reports the New York Times. First step? Turbocharging Yahoo Mail to make it more a communications hub and less a post office, a prototype Yahoo demo'd at the Consumer Electronics Show last week.

But CEO and founder Jerry Yang promised more change, including the retirement of less popular apps like social network Yahoo 360, and opening up existing ones to outside applications and the rest of the Web. Analysts say the changes can’t come soon enough—Google has narrowed Yahoo's lead in overall traffic from 22 million to 5 million. (More Yahoo stories.)