Yahoo Inc. plans to make its Web site a social hub by hosting applications from other online services, part of the Internet pioneer’s effort to spawn more advertising opportunities.

“We are going to rewire the entire experience at Yahoo to make it social in every dimension,” Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer, said Thursday at a “Web 2.0″ conference that drew a crowd of more than 1,000.

The more open platform copies a concept that already has been embraced by Internet search leader Google Inc. and a variety of online social hangouts, including Facebook Inc. and News Corp.’s MySpace.com.

Yahoo’s new look will give its roughly 500 million users greater flexibility to customize Web pages. They will be able to pick from a variety of mini-applications, known as “widgets,” and plant them just about anywhere on the site, including their personal version of the front page.