• The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, July 21, 2009 1:45 PM

Today, Yahoo is expected to unveil a new homepage, months earlier than previously planned, The Wall Street Journal reports. Former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang started the project, codenamed "Metro". It's been one of the company's biggest undertakings over the past year.

According to The Journal, the biggest change is a left-hand menu users can customize with links to dozens of potential third party applications. Yahoo will pre-populate this menu based on users' browsing behavior, sources said, with news and headlines running down the middle of the site. Starting today, the new design is expected to be available as an option for users when they go to Yahoo.com.

Originally, Yahoo planned to launch the redesign in September or October as part of a broader rebranding effort, but Yahoo's new CEO Carol Bartz decided to push up the time frame. Yahoo issues its second quarter earnings later today; analysts are expecting revenue and profit to drop from a year ago.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »