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New Widget Dock, New Flickr Widget and Performance Improvements Highlight Upgrade to Industry’s Only Major Cross-OS Desktop Widget Platform

Yahoo! Inc. today launched Yahoo! Widgets 4, a new version of the industry leading desktop Widgets platform. Yahoo! Widgets give consumers a live, at-a-glance view of their favorite Internet information and services on the desktop. This new version offers users and developers improved features and capabilities, including a new Widget Dock, new and improved Widgets, dramatically improved performance, new and streamlined installation, improved authoring tools and automatic updates. The industry’s only major cross-OS desktop Widget platform is now available for download at http://widgets.yahoo.com.

“Yahoo! continues its leadership position in the desktop Widget category, and with Yahoo! Widgets 4 we are excited to bring the newest version of our pioneering product to consumers and developers alike,” said Paul Brody, vice-president, desktop products, Yahoo!. “Millions of active users rely on Yahoo!’s connected desktop applications to keep updated Internet content that’s important to them right at their fingertips, and our new product gives them the functionality to make it easier and better organized than ever.”

Yahoo! Widgets 4 delivers improved performance and a host of new features to help users keep Widgets organized and easily accessible, including:

• Widget Dock – a brand new feature that provides a live, at-a-glance view of your favorite Internet information and services. Users can auto-hide the Dock and attach it to any side or corner of multiple monitors.
• Dramatically improved performance – reduced memory consumption of individual Widgets by up to 40 percent.¹
• New Widgets by Yahoo! – Yahoo! introduces the Flickr^TM Widget and the Yahoo! Gallery Widget.
• Streamlined installation – smaller download and a new Widget-centric installation process makes it easier than ever for consumers to get the Widget they want and for authors to promote their own Widgets.
• Improved authoring tools – new functionality and improved tools for Widget authors to build more powerful Widgets.
• Automatic updates – notification via the Widget Dock when newer versions of the Widgets in use are available and ready for one-click upgrade².

Yahoo! Widgets 4 marks the release of the new Flickr Widget. The Flickr Widget is the most full-featured Widget Yahoo! has ever developed and is an extension of Yahoo!’s popular Flickr photo-sharing service. The Flickr Widget helps users easily display, upload and tag Flickr photos. Users can now drag-and-drop larger groups of photos, and edit their tags and information without ever opening a web browser.

Yahoo! Widgets 4 also includes the new Yahoo! Gallery Widget, which provides easy access to the Yahoo! Widget Gallery, the largest collection of desktop Widgets available anywhere on the Internet, with over 4,300 desktop Widgets developed and submitted by independent Widget authors from around the world. With the new Gallery Widget, users can find thousands of Widgets right from their desktop and start running them with one click.

All Widgets in the Yahoo! Widget Gallery are safe and ready for download, and can be managed on a user’s desktop via the Widget Dock. In addition, this new release features updates to the 21 popular Yahoo! Widgets that came pre-loaded with the previous version.

Yahoo! Widgets 4, powered by the popular Konfabulator desktop development platform, provides an accessible standards-based platform for web-technology developers to extend their reach to the desktops of millions of use. In addition, Yahoo! is the only major provider to offer a cross-OS widgets platform — Mac OS X, Win 2000, Win XP and Windows Vista.

For more information on Yahoo! Widgets 4, or to download the new version, go to http://widgets.yahoo.com/.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo!’s mission is to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world’s knowledge. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

¹ The memory consumption reductions apply to Virtual Memory (VM) Size, which is the most important performance metric that we could improve. To see this, in your Windows Task Manager choose ‘Select Columns …’ from the ‘View’ menu and check the box for ‘VM Size.’

² Currently only available for Widgets authored by Yahoo!. This functionality will soon be available for all Widgets in the Yahoo! Widget Gallery.

Source: Yahoo! Keeps Consumers Connected with Yahoo! Widgets 4

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