Yahoo's Open Strategy adds Picnik, Mint.com, and others

Yahoo continues to push forward with its “Open Strategy” — which allows third-party applications to plug into services like Yahoo Mail and make those services more social — with the addition of several new applications today.

Yahoo, of course, has been struggling for a while now, a pattern continuing in the most recent quarter under new chief executive Carol Bartz. There’s been some question about whether this strategy can “save” Yahoo, and while it seems unlikely to do so alone, the Open Strategy at least shows an ambition to rethink and improve all of Yahoo’s services.

Yahoo declined to give me any numbers about usage of the first wave of applications announced in December, but the fact that other companies are interested in jumping on the platform seems like a good sign.

Here are the new applications announced today:

• Picnik — lets you edit photos and share photo collages in Yahoo Mail.
• Zumo Drive — lets you email files as large 100 megabytes for free.
• Mint.com — manages your finances through a widget in the My Yahoo home page.
• What’s Cookin’ Food & Wine Pairing — helps find recipes, reviews, and pairings of food and wine through a widget in My Yahoo.
• Mokugift — educates user about the environment through a widget in My Yahoo.
• YouTube — a Yahoo TV widget for watching videos on your television.
• Showtime — a Yahoo TV widget for browsing the cable network’s schedules and watching short clips.
• eBay — a Yahoo TV widget for using the online auction site.
• Yahoo’s Zimbra email application is also getting new “Zimlets” today.

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