Yahoo is testing an experimental social network service called Mash, apparently designed to lure users away from rivals Facebook and MySpace.

Mash has already been dubbed “an homage to Facebook” – but with a difference: users of the new Yahoo site can edit each other’s profiles. “Think the Wikipedia version of a social network,” the New York Times said.

Executives at Yahoo, under immense pressure to rejuvenate the ailing internet giant, were more cagey. “Ongoing product innovation is important to Yahoo and we continue to test various products and services to gain feedback from our users,” a spokesman said.

“Mash, an experimental profile service, is an example of this ongoing testing.”

The Techcrunch site also carries a review of the new Yahoo offering. It picked out a feature "called Pulse, which is very similar to Facebook’s news feed. The Pulse page shows “updates from your friends” that are basically Twitter-like messages reporting all of your friends’ activity on Mash."

It added: "Unfortunately, it looks like Mash lacks a vital feature of Facebook: search. In the top right of every Mash page there is a search box for regular Yahoo search, but that appears to be it."

Yahoo was one of the first groups to embrace internet-based tools that allow users to collaborate and share online content. Two years ago it snapped up Flickr.com, which lets users share photographs. It also launched Yahoo Answers, which allows users to submit queries on any topic to a community of users.

Yahoo executives have long-argued that the Answers service would be a “web 2.0 poster child” if it were a separate business. But services such as Flickr have not flourished under Yahoo’s wing – in fact, Facebook is now the most popular photo-sharing website.

A previous social-networking offering, dubbed Yahoo 360, has failed to gain traction.

But social networks have become a hotspot for online advertising – Yahoo's core business – and have featured highly in the group's thinking since co-founder Jerry Yang was appointed chief executive earlier this year.

Yahoo last week unveiled its first deal in the social networking sector when it revealed it will supply targeted banner advertising to Bebo.

The two groups said that advertisers would benefit from the combination of Bebo’s highly engaged audience, much of which is in the sought-after 13 to 24-year-old bracket, and Yahoo!’s ability to target consumers with advertising campaigns tailored to their internet habits.

Yahoo!’s main rivals, Google and Microsoft, already have advertising partnerships with MySpace and Facebook, the two market leaders in social networking, respectively.

Unknown two years ago, social networks are now visited by more than six million Britons a month, and are growing rapidly, according to Ofcom, the media watchdog.

According to the regulator, one in four people with an internet connection at home now uses a social networking site — rising to nearly a third among 15 to 24-year-olds.

Separately, Yahoo said last week unveiled the acquisition of BuzzTracker.com, a website that monitors 110,000 different online sources – including traditional media sites and blogs - to identify popular topics.

The service could be used to build a new rival to Google News, the news aggregator site, experts suggested.

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