It seems that Yahoo is continuing its integration of social networks into its portal page, moving now to include access to Twitter for its users who also use the micro-blogging platform.

Another addition to Yahoo users' homepages

The aim with Facebook and Twitter integration, from Yahoo’s point of view, will be to keep people from ever having to navigate away from its page. Moreover, if Yahoo’s users can use Yahoo as a kind of universal homepage, offering both their various social networks and access to news, email and search then there are far more compelling reasons to make Yahoo a homepage and browse its content, something Yahoo will likely be pushing hard for given that it slipped last month from second most visited site in the US to third, Facebook taking the spot between it and Google.

Yahoo’s senior vice president for its consumer product group said of the move in a Reuters interview,

“Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less: We’re turning the key to the online social universe – you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo

We’re also simplifying people’s lives by bringing their social worlds – and the world – together for easy access.”

It’s certainly an interesting addition to Yahoo’s portal page, and one that may well help Yahoo’s homepage add up to something a little more than the sum of its parts. The fact is that many users find the fact that they have to keep a raft of various bookmarks for various services an irritation; if Yahoo can conflate those services into one page then it could very well benefit nicely indeed from the move.