Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Carol Bartz said the company would keep modernizing its online properties through the summer of 2011 as it strives to increase the time people spend on its sites.

Bartz told analysts at a briefing on Wednesday that Yahoo was focused on infusing its network of more than a dozen websites with additional social media, video, and local content. The network includes shopping, sports and finance sites.

She said Yahoo had no plans to follow competitors like Google Inc and Microsoft Corp by developing its own smartphone device or operating system software for smartphones.

I don't want to have a handset. I don't want to be in that side of the business, said Bartz. We want to have the best, best applications.

Yahoo has been reorganizing its business, shedding assets and acquiring new companies under Bartz, who began her current role in January 2009.

On Wednesday, Yahoo announced a partnership with Zynga in which Zynga social networking games, such as FarmVille, will be available across Yahoo's online properties.

Last month, Yahoo acquired Associated Content, an online publisher that offers articles and videos created by a network of freelancers.

Last July, Bartz signed a 10-year deal with Microsoft to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in expenses by shifting Web indexing chores to Microsoft while Yahoo focuses on improving searching.

Yahoo has its focus, it is excited about its future, and it has its pride back, said Bartz, who made headlines two days ago for using an expletive in a rebuke of a technology blogger who was interviewing her onstage at a conference in New York.

Yahoo is facing increasing competition from other Internet companies.

Since September, when Yahoo launched a $100 million advertising campaign, unique visitors to Yahoo websites in the United States declined 2.6 percent to 155.6 million in April and total page views declined 11.4 percent, according to comScore, an Internet analytics company in Reston, Virginia.

In contrast, unique visitors and page views increased in April at Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

Yahoo executives at Wednesday's analysts' event said the company expects to complete integration of its search technology with Microsoft in all 59 countries in which it operates by the second quarter of 2012.

Some analysts and investors have expressed concern that Yahoo is offsetting cost savings from its deal with Microsoft by spending money on other parts of the business.

Bartz defended the spending, explaining that Yahoo needed to retrofit many of its websites to bring them up to date and to make them easier to customize.

Shares of Yahoo were up 1.96 pecent at $15.61 Wednesday afternoon.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic)

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