Yahoo! Revamps News Aggregator

Jockeying for the position of top online news destination, Yahoo! Thursday announced the release of revamped Yahoo! News sites in beta.

In an effort to streamline and simplify users' news intake, Yahoo! has moved the site's navigation options from a vertical layout flanking the left side of the page to a horizontal one on top of the page. The site also offers more defined links and a wider area for stories.

The banner advertisements, which are positioned vertically above and horizontally alongside stories on the existing site, have been reconfigured as "large rectangle" ads, and will lie mixed within stories' content. This change works to the advantage of both readers and advertisers, according to a Yahoo! spokesman, because it works to further clean up the site by cutting down on ad space, and give the ads better positioning--and thus greater impact.

In response to the public's interest in a broad selection of sources, the new site also invites users to choose and compare what is being offered by a number of different publishers--the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Washingtonpost.com, USATODAY.com, and The Christian Science Monitor. "All of the research that we've done indicates that people aren't satisfied anymore with one publisher's perspective," the Yahoo! spokesman said. "They're hungry for multiple perspectives, and our sites provide them with that without having to search all over the Web."

Yahoo! News attracted more unique visitors than any of its competitors in six of the last 14 months, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Yahoo!'s spokesman attributes traffic from Yahoo!'s other numerous parts with its leadership as a news destination, and the extra traffic this new service will generate should only amplify that effect. For the week ending April 9, 2005, more than 85 percent of visits to Yahoo! News came from other Yahoo! properties, according to Hitwise.

But Yahoo! is not to be confused with news publishers. Yahoo! has no reporters, but does employ between 10 and 20 editorial staffers who are responsible for monitoring and repackaging much of the news content that Yahoo!'s automated system brings in. "We're a technology company, and what we're doing here is using our technology expertise to improve the news content experience for our users and our advertisers--we make the whole process manageable and effective for both," said the Yahoo! spokesman.

Additional features include an option that allows users to tie other news feeds from around the Web into their regular content consumption with the use of a "My Sources" tool. Also, with the help of html technology, users can click on highlighted popular terms with stories, and Yahoo!'s Y!Q service will bring up a list of stories related to the highlighted term.

Yahoo!'s spokesman refused to address the details of its relationships with the publishers whose content it hosts. "Every publisher we work with is interested in something different: some want traffic; some want brand exposure; and so on," he said.

The new site will likely be Yahoo!'s default news site in the next several weeks, said Yahoo!'s spokesman. Kinsey Wilson, vice president and editor in chief of USATODAY.com said the company's main motive was extending its reach. "If we were not seeing the click-throughs to validate the relationship, we wouldn't be doing this," he said.

Next story loading loading..