Better late than never is what they say right? Everyone else and their brother have made their deal with Twitter so Yahoo doing so only makes sense. What is interesting is that while this kind of announcement should be a big deal it comes off as sounding a little “after the fact” which, unfortunately, seems to be how Yahoo is perceived more and more these days.

To be fair, Yahoo has more properties to tie Twitter into so the deal is likely to be more complex than the “real time search” deals that have been struck with Google and Microsoft. Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal blog sings the deal’s praises

What does this mean for you? Very soon, you will be able to see your Twitter feed on Yahoo! just as easily as you use Yahoo! to consume all of the other great content you love from across the Web. Through today’s partnership, along with our recently announced Facebook relationship, Yahoo! is giving your online social life wings to help you stay in touch with the people and things you care about most across the Web. It’s part of our strategy to ensure that Yahoo! delivers the people and things that matter most to you!

Want to see your friends’ latest Twitter posts? Or update your Twitter feed with stories and content from Yahoo!? Or check out trending topics and public updates? You no longer need to stop what you’re doing to see what’s going on with your Twitterverse — you’ll be able to do it all from Yahoo!.

This kind of a play is probably most important to Yahoo because now that it is not a search engine (although the average person may never have a clue that Yahoo doesn’t actually do the search behind the scenes which is for another discussion). The social side of the web is about content and that’s where Yahoo is hanging their hat for the future. In their blog post they are showing their hand that while they are making this announcement they are not quite there yet. Here is what we can look forward to

Coming Soon: Read your personal Twitter feeds directly from Yahoo!’s many products and properties, including the homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, and others — anywhere you can see Yahoo! Updates across our network.

Coming Soon: Update your Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in your Twitter stream — we’ve made it even easier to share what’s going on with your friends and followers on Yahoo! and Twitter.

Coming Soon: Whenever you produce social actions on any website (like comments on articles, ratings, buzzes on Yahoo! Buzz) that you’ve allowed to appear on Yahoo! Updates, those actions can also be shared automatically with your friends on Twitter. (Pssst: Publishers and developers interested in learning more about Yahoo! Updates, including publishing directly into it or using Yahoo! Buzz or the Yahoo! Application Platform as ways of driving social traffic to your site, look here [http://developer.yahoo.com/updates], here [http://buzz.yahoo.com/publisher/about], and here [http://developer.yahoo.com/homepage].)

Coming Soon: Yahoo! media properties like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates, allowing you to get a quick pulse-check on topics, trending and otherwise.

Available Today: Yahoo! Search users will immediately see real-time Twitter results starting today.

So there are a lot of changes coming down the line for Yahoo. The question still remains though whether these are enough to keep Yahoo as a relevant player in the space.

How do you use Yahoo today and does this look attractive enough to make you more of a user in the future?