Yahoo has quietly launched an experimental site that offers mobile-phone subscribers the ability to send text messages and share videos and pictures among friends. The service follows a trend among Internet portals to offer mobile social-networking services.

Rather than the usual fanfare that accompanies the debut of most new sites, Yahoo plans to market Mixd on a handful of college campuses across the nation. The strategy focuses on Yahoo’s target audience, so-called Generation Yers who are the biggest users of their mobile phones’ data services.

“It’s really an experiment,” Scott Gatz, senior director of Yahoo’s Advanced Products Group, said of Mixd, which hit the Web Wednesday. “We’re putting it out to consumers to see how they use the product.”

Source: InformationWeek