Yahoo! Inc., owner of the most-visited website, may consider developing its own Internet browser to help attract more users and advertisers to its websites, chief executive Terry Semel said.
“You could look to Yahoo to do most everything that makes sense on the Internet going forward,” Semel said in an interview in New York. Developing a browser may make sense “at some point in time,” he said.
Yahoo ranks second to Google Inc. in Internet searches and is fighting to attract users and the advertisers that seek to reach them. Google is stepping up competition with Yahoo by adding products such as a personalized home page and online maps.
Developing a browser could help both companies further lock in users to their websites.
“We do look at all possibilities, and you can imagine we’ll probably be involved in them all,” Semel, 62, said.
Online advertising and subscription services are still in their “infancy,” he said.
Shares of Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo fell 64 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $36.81 at Friday in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.
They’ve fallen 2.3 percent this year.
Google fell $3.81, or 1.3 percent, to $282.50 and has risen 47 percent this year.
Yahoo is adding music and video content to attract consumers who use high-speed Internet connections. The company on May 11 introduced a new music service that undercut prices charged by competing services from Napster Inc. and RealNetworks Inc.
“We don’t look at the price today,” Semel said. “We look at how great is the service.”
Semel said makers of portable music players, such as Apple Computer Inc. and Sony Corp., will start to see “enormous opportunities” if they work with music services such as Yahoo’s.
He said he talks “from time to time” with Apple CEO Steven Jobs.
Users of Yahoo’s “Music Unlimited” pay $4.99 a month for an annual subscription and $6.99 on a month-by-month basis, allowing them to download and play songs.
The service requires users to download separate music software to manage the songs.
