Whether or not you've heard the news, if you have a Yahoo account then you've probably noticed subtle differences in many of the screens where your contacts and your status updates are managed.

In December 2009, Yahoo Mail was integrated with Facebook. These days, if you're a Yahoo user, you'll discover connections to Facebook all throughout Yahoo. This goes beyond simple share buttons. You can now import all of your Facebook contact information and birthdays into your Yahoo contacts list, you can update your status from your Yahoo status box, and you can even import your profile picture from Facebook.

In this article, I'm going to show you the four areas of Yahoo where you'll notice the clearest integration with Facebook and how you can make use of those connections.

Accessing Facebook From Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail was the very first area of Yahoo that become integrated with your Facebook account. You can be certain the purpose for doing this was so that Yahoo users could import all of their Facebook contacts into their Yahoo contact list.

The first thing you'll notice once you've signed into your Facebook account from Yahoo, is that when you access your Ymail main page, the center pane shows all of the latest status updates from both Yahoo and Facebook.

facebook on yahoo

The display defaults to use both, but if you want, you can click on the Facebook tab and only see all of your friends Facebook status updates. By default, your Yahoo and Facebook contact lists are separate. Yahoo apparently respects your privacy enough not to automatically import all of your Facebook contact details into your Yahoo contact list. However, you can do this by clicking on "Contacts" inside Yahoo Mail.

yahoo facebook

Clicking on "Get Started" will walk you through the process of bringing in all of the data from your Facebook contacts and integrating them into your Yahoo contact list. Once you've "plugged in" your Facebook account, your contact information on Yahoo will remain updated with all of the latest contact information.

Another cool integration between Facebook and Yahoo Mail is that whenever you receive an email message from a contact that Yahoo recognizes as one of your Facebook friends, you'll see a little "F" Facebook icon on the corner of their profile image.

yahoo facebook

If you click that icon, it'll whisk you immediately to that person's Facebook page.

Other Yahoo Integration With Facebook

Since December 2009, Yahoo has been hard at work integrating Facebook features into the rest of the website as well. So long as you've enabled the Facebook connection with your Yahoo account, you'll discover Facebook access almost anywhere.

One very convenient integration I noticed was from the main Yahoo page. So long as you're logged in, under "My Favorites" you'll find "Facebook" listed. If you click on the "Quickview" link, a minimized view of Facebook pops up within your main Yahoo page.

yahoo facebook

The coolest thing about this is that you can immediately check out your Facebook page straight from your Yahoo main page, without going to a different website or opening a new window. The quickview screen works just as though you're at the Facebook site itself. Click on any of the tabs at the top and the content will change within the quickview screen.

instant messenger yahoo facebook

Now, if you've ever used any of the social network desktop or online apps that integrate all of your social networks like Seesmic or Digsby, you'll see that Yahoo is actually attempting to accomplish the same goal. If you click on the "Have something to share?" link on your main Yahoo page, you'll see that under the dropdown box, you can choose to distribute your status update to your Facebook account by selecting the box.

instant messenger yahoo facebook

You'll see this especially when you visit Yahoo Pulse. Here, it's pretty obvious that Yahoo is really trying to become the central hub where Yahoo users access all of their social networks. In fact the Yahoo Pulse page mirrors the Facebook layout in a lot of ways, with the status update at the top, friend updates from your various networks in the center, and even friend connections and "applications" on the right, just like in Facebook.

instant messenger yahoo facebook

As you can see from the screenshot above, Yahoo also offers the ability to plug into your Twitter account so you can send and receive updates from your Yahoo account as well.

facebook on yahoo

Yahoo Pulse is also where you'll go into your profile to extract your Facebook photo for use as your Yahoo avatar. Finally - no more silly cartoon character for a profile!

Are you a Yahoo user, and if so, do you know of any other ways that Facebook is integrated into Yahoo? What do you think about the integration? Share your insight and thoughts in the comments section below.