July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Yahoo! Inc., trying to add users and advertisers, will today introduce the first redesign of its home page since 2006.

A test version of the page will debut in the U.S. and spread to France, India and the U.K. in the next week, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said. The site aims to make it easier to access content from across the Web, including social- networking services, news and shopping.

A section called My Favorites lets users add small boxes that have direct links to specifics sites, such as Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and BBC News. When the cursor hovers over one of the boxes, a larger graphic will open, giving updates from that site. The boxes will have space for ads, bringing a new opportunity for Yahoo to generate revenue. The page will have a space for a “deal of the day,” letting advertisers feature a certain product.

“This is probably the most fundamental revisiting of the Yahoo home page since the beginning of Yahoo,” Tapan Bhat, senior vice president of integrated consumer experiences at the company, said in an interview. “What Yahoo is is a place where millions of people come, and we want to make sure this becomes the center of their lives online.”

As of next month, the site will also let users choose what kind of news they want, ranging from fun to serious. Another feature allows them to share their social status for sites such as Facebook and News Corp.’s MySpace.

The final version of the page will be available in the fall, said Kryssa Guntrum, a spokeswoman for Yahoo.

Shares Climbed

Yahoo also plans to update its mobile service. People who use smart phones such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone will be able to add the My Favorites boxes to their phones’ Yahoo software from next week.

Yahoo fell 26 cents to $16.75 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have climbed 37 percent this year.

In June, Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software company, started offering Bing, an overhauled and renamed search product. Bing offers simpler ways to search for products and travel services and is backed by a multimedia marketing campaign.

In an effort to take on Google Inc., Yahoo may team up with rival Microsoft. The two companies are close to signing a partnership to collaborate on Internet-search technology and advertising, two people familiar with the matter said last week.

The two companies, in talks for the past several months, may reach an agreement as soon as this week, although next week is more likely, said one person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private.

Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, declined to comment.

“Yahoo is committed to delivering wow experiences to our users and continue to explore innovative ways to do so,” May Petry, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, said in an e-mail. “Beyond this, we have nothing to announce and do not comment on rumor or speculation.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 21, 2009 16:05 EDT