Our Blog: where do you stand?

Yahoo! Throws Down

By: Mistie Thompson | 04/01/2008

Sometimes it seems as if the Google vs. Yahoo! battle is almost as heated as the Alabama vs. Auburn intense near death smackdown friendly rivalry. I actually prefer Google, for the simple (and admittedly simplistic) reasons that I find Google easier to navigate, I like the ease with which I can use their services, and I like to see the fun things they do with their logo on holidays (yes, I'm easily entertained).

Yahoo!, however, has decided to up the ante with a couple of new offerings - Yahoo! Buzz and Yahoo! Shine. As Yahoo! Buzz explains, it's like other social content websites such as del.icio.us and Digg, but it's unique because it "also takes into account things like trends in search queries on Yahoo! Search, and the number of times that content is shared with friends over email." Maybe I'm just being dense, or maybe it's too early to tell, but I haven't noticed that the Buzz is significantly different from other social content websites, although I am enjoying The Buzz Log.

Yahoo! Shine targets women with easy-to-navigate content on everything from fashion to parenting to food, along with blog entries from people like Immigrant Magazine columnist Bobbi Miller-Moro and (apparently) random bloggers (given what's there, they may want to rethink this strategy). Shine is well-designed and draws from a number of popular women's magazines including Self, InStyle, Cosmopolitan and Prevention for stories and video content. I'm still trying to figure out how astrology fits into the content (and why astrological content appears in women's magazines but not men's), but Shine is something I'll check out again.

And for the record, I also prefer Alabama...unless they're playing Arkansas.

Posted in Social Media, Digital Communications