Women will Shine at Yahoo

In another bid to rebuild their business, Yahoo has launched Shine. Targeted explicitly to women aged 25 – 54, Shine is the search engine giant’s first demographic specific site. However, the company has previously launched a number of specialist sites on subjects such as sport and finance, which are targeted specifically to a certain group of people.

The distinct demographic of Shine is sure to make the site a popular choice for advertisers, particularly companies in retail, pharmaceutical and consumer-packaged goods. Yahoo are keen to attract new advertisers, as they have recently seen a real slump in advertising revenue.

Shine will offer a vast range of content on subjects such as parenting, beauty, sex and love, healthy living, career and money, entertainment, fashion, food, astrology, and home life. While some of this will be syndicated from lifestyle publishers such as the Hearst Corporation and Conde Nast, Yahoo has also employed an editorial team to write daily content. In addition to this, the editorial team will be charged with choosing the blog posts that are predominantly featured on the homepage, as well as finding interesting stories from elsewhere on Yahoo.

Shine will feature a wide variety of content in a blog style format, which will make the site a real one-stop shop for women. Amy Lorio of Yahoo Lifestyles said that the decision to do this was made after the company embarked on an intensive internal research programme. She said of their findings, “These women were sort of caretakers for everybody in their lives. They didn't feel like there was a place that was looking at the whole them — as a parent, as a spouse, as a daughter. They were looking for one place that gave them everything.”

The launch of Shine signals the latest instalment in Yahoo’s strategy to create a clutch of specifically themed sites, which will allow the search engine giant to appeal to their widest possible audience. This strategy was first implemented in May 2006 with the launch of Yahoo Tech, and again in November 2006, with the launch of another specialist site, Yahoo Food.

Source:

Associated Press
Reuters