Yahoo! Sharpens Its Tech Edge

Yahoo!(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), the portal and search site that lately has been languishing in Google's(GOOG - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) shadow, is stepping out with new initiatives that will put it square on the leading edge of the Internet sector.

Yahoo! has been quietly aggressive about pushing into cutting-edge areas of technology -- vertical searches, blogs, social networks and a form of content distribution called RSS (really simple syndication) -- that are proving highly popular among early adopters of technology. Software developers and investors involved in emerging Internet technologies say they could represent the next wave of Web innovation to win over the masses.

Whether these fledgling areas will soon translate into monetized business operations remains unclear. But if they do, Yahoo! will be among the first to capitalize on them. More immediately, they are already helping to restore Yahoo!'s image among its core audience as a leader in technology innovation, not another also-ran tagging behind Google in the search race.

"For the past 18 months, Yahoo! has quietly changed from a portal into a site that is intelligently weaving new applications through search," says Chris Sherman, an editor at Search Engine Watch. "You hear more people saying Yahoo!'s getting its groove back, but the fact is, they never lost it in the first place."

To some degree, the comparisons to Google are unfair. Google directs users away from its site as quickly as possible, a strategy that paradoxically brings visitors back as they grow addicted to its usefulness. Google also makes money whenever a user leaves by clicking on a sponsored ad. Google's focus on this strategy is so strong that it's not surprising its sponsored-ad revenue is stronger than Yahoo!'s.

Yahoo! has largely taken a different route. The lesser part of its revenue comes from Google-like, sponsored-links ads. But the bulk comes from content on its site, and that means it's in Yahoo!'s interest to keep users on its site as long as possible.