Facebook to let users carry profiles with them

Facebook's Web site could also become an even more attractive platform for hosting a wide range of mini-applications, known as "widgets," now that its users will be able to take the same bundle of programs to other Web sites. Drawn by a potentially larger audience, developers may see greater reason to create applications for Facebook.

The portability of personal profiles also may help other top Web sites, like Yahoo, that have struggled to create their own social networks. Yahoo is hoping to drum up more advertising by featuring more social applications from outside sources. Yahoo is under intense pressure to boost its profits after its board refused last weekend to sell to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion.

Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook in October, valuing the 4-year-old startup at $15 billion. That deal came a little more than a year after Facebook rejected a $1 billion buyout offer from Yahoo.

Facebook's recent efforts to interact with other sites haven't gone smoothly. Last year, users rebelled when Facebook introduced a marketing tool that tracked and broadcast information about their activities on dozens of other Web sites. The backlash prompted Facebook to empower users to turn off the feature permanently.