Sneak Peak on Yahoo!Xtra - Yahoo's New Portal

Yahoo issued a presentation page for the Yahoo!Xtra product without an official description of the service and with a small number of details. As Yahoo mentions, the new solution will be released on March 1, 2007 and will be promoted under the slogan "Good things happen when Xtra meets Yahoo!". As far I can see, it represents a new version of the well known product developed by the company, the Internet portal that provides instant access to numerous services also designed by Yahoo. In the copyright section it is mentioned Yahoo! Australia & NZ Pty Limited so it's obvious Yahoo!Xtra represents Yahoo's portal especially designed for New Zealand.

As you probably know, Yahoo!7 is the Australian portal provided by the company, released on January 30, 2006 and designed in a partnership with Seven Network. It seems like Yahoo!Xtra will be also based on an agreement between Yahoo and another firm so we should expect for some exciting features for the upcoming product.

At the first sight, you should observe the products mentioned by the company that will be included in Yahoo!Xtra are obviously representing an upcoming portal: mail, messenger and search, as well as news, sport and entertainment.

If you didn't know, Yahoo!Xtra looks like a product that will challenge the existing other Xtra service available in New Zealand and powered by Microsoft. XtraMSN is a different portal designed by the software giant that helps residents of the New Zealand personalize the services, news and search technologies provided by the company for their own needs.

It seems like the two products Yahoo!Xtra and XtraMSN will have a similar partner because Xtra is a part of Telecom New Zealand, one of the most important Internet service providers in the country and MSN's partner for XtraMSN. The preview of the upcoming portal is available on this link.