The Yahoo! Social Bar is now available on Yahoo! Malaysia News and will be rolled out in other Yahoo! Malaysia properties

Yahoo! Inc. today announced it is extending the Facebook integration, known as Social Bar, to all the Southeast Asia and India markets.

In Malaysia, the social bar has been launched on Yahoo!'s most popular property, Yahoo! News. With the launch of Facebook integration in Malaysia and worldwide, Yahoo! users can now connect and add their friends as ‘social editors' to share and extend their Yahoo! experience.

Currently, Yahoo! has a reach of 72% of the total Internet population in Malaysia (comScore Media Metrix, December 2011). The latest launch marks a new phase in Yahoo!'s relationship with Facebook and a milestone in Yahoo!'s strategy to infuse increasingly social and personalized experiences across the company's global portfolio of premier digital media content. 

"As one of the world's most popular online destinations, Yahoo! delivers the most compelling content on the Web through a combination of local editors, advanced technologies, and now, your friends," said Blake Irving, chief product officer, Yahoo!. "Since its US launch in September last year, we've seen traffic from Facebook to Yahoo! increase dramatically."

Connecting Millions to Leading Yahoo! Content

Since launching the Social Bar globally, more than 22 million people have opted-in, increasing referrals from Facebook to Yahoo! and bringing a younger (18-34 years) audience of socially engaged people to Yahoo!. In Malaysia, since its launch in December, the traffic to Yahoo! has increased more than 600%.

"We are excited about the performance of Social Bar in Malaysia, where referrals from Facebook to Yahoo! Malaysia News have already increased 600% since the launch. We look forward to bringing the same easy content sharing tools to other Yahoo! Malaysia properties in the near future.", according to Isaac Souweine, Yahoo! APAC Head of Product Marketing for Mobile, Communications and Communities.

Discover and Connect with Friends around More Yahoo! Content

The extension of the Social Bar feature to more Yahoo! sites around the world lets people discover and connect around the news, entertainment and information they are enjoying on Yahoo! through updates on Facebook. The feature is available in Yahoo! News (http://my.news.yahoo.com/).  A straightforward opt-in process launches people into the immersive social experience:

• Control What You Share – By opting-in to the new feature, people can see their Facebook friends' and the recent articles they've read. People's activity will also be featured on their Facebook profile as it happens. It's easy to turn it on and off and delete items.

• View Your Friends' Activity – Shows Facebook friends and what they're reading on Yahoo! in a new section at the top of the page.

More information on the Yahoo! Social Bar is available http://my.news.yahoo.com/activity-learn-more/ and our company blog, Yodel Anecdotal, at yodel.yahoo.com.