An advanced Yahoo toolbar also was revealed, featuring constant access to essential tasks. Additionally, the company is providing updates between the Yahoo Music and Yahoo TV sites via Yahoo Updates, offering visibility into online activities of connections across the Yahoo network. My Yahoo, which offers a more personalized interface for Yahoo, is being fitted with the ability to link to third-party applications.

Yahoo showed off its host of improvements at a press event in San Francisco on Monday. The company with its efforts seeks to leverage social application capabilities. Innovations are part of Yahoo Open Strategy, which is intended to provide a more socially relevant Web experience.

With Yahoo Mail, the company is offering what it calls a "smarter inbox."

"Yahoo Mail is what we consider a key starting point on the Web. It's got 275 million monthly global users," said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.

The smarter inbox, which is being rolled out to users on a limited basis in coming months, features a new Welcome Page that surfaces messages, information, and activity updates from persons of most concern to the user. An updated inbox and folder view filters messages from personal connections. Users also can get immediate access to relevant third-party applications.