Despite a hectic past two months fighting off a proxy battle with investor Carl Icahn, Yahoo is rumored to be sending out buyout feelers for social-networks company Demand Media.

Of these, the latter (social networks), according to the research firm’s new report, will draw the biggest investment. Even that will be dwarfed by the huge revenue flows the software industry commands.

Search engine giant Yahoo announced that it supported a program by archrival Google Inc. to develop applications for social networks and that it would help create a joint foundation to keep it alive.

Search engine giant Yahoo announced that it supported a program by archrival Google Inc. to develop applications for social networks and that it would help create a joint foundation to keep it alive.

Yahoo has said that it will be joining an alliance to be led by Google, its principal rival, that will try to make it easier for programmers to write software that can run on the pages of many social networks and other Web sites.

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo said Tuesday that it would join an alliance to be led by Google, its principal rival, that will try to make it easier for programmers to write software that can run on the pages of many social networks and other Web sites.

The Internet firm also says it will help form a joint foundation to support OpenSocial. Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday that it supported a program by archrival Google Inc. to develop applications for social networks and that it would help create a joint foundation to keep it alive.

Yahoo said on Tuesday it is backing a program by rival Google to make software work fluidly across different social networks, and will create a joint foundation to promote the effort.

Yahoo said on Tuesday it is backing a program by rival Google to make software work fluidly across different social networks, and will create a joint foundation to promote the effort.

Yahoo has agreed to work with Google and MySpace to promote a common set of software standards to make it easier to create applications for Internet social networks, the companies announced Tuesday.