Yahoo introduced on Thursday to India its Buzz social news site, which identifies the top news stories and blog posts based on user votes and search patterns.
India is the first market outside the U.S. to get Buzz. Over 60 percent of Internet users in the country are younger than 25 years old, and there is a lot of interest among users in social media tools such as Buzz, said Frazier Miller, head of audience at Yahoo India.
Yahoo often tests out new technologies in India, one of the company's key markets. Before rolling it out in the U.S, Yahoo tested in India its new Glue search concept that aggregates text, images and video results on a single page.
There are a lot of similarities between the U.S. and Indian market, such as the use of the English language, which makes it easier for products from the U.S. to be introduced quickly in India and vice versa, Miller said.
Yahoo is planning on introducing its products across a number of markets at the same time, Miller added.
Buzz helps Yahoo understand people's interests and improve the relevance of content on its Indian home page, Yahoo said on Thursday. Buzz also helps publishers deliver their best content to Yahoo's broad and diverse audience, it added.
Content from over 20,000 publishers worldwide has been submitted to Yahoo Buzz since it launched in the U.S. last year.
Yahoo Buzz in India already features content from over two dozen local publishers. Online publishers can place a Yahoo Buzz button on their Web pages to enable readers to share and vote on stories.
Yahoo does not have immediate plans to introduce Buzz in Indian languages even though it runs some of its Web sites in local languages. In the future, Yahoo may integrate advertisements into Buzz in order to generate revenue, Miller said.
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