Yahoo launches 'Shine' Web site for women

By Jacqueline Emigh | Published March 31, 2008, 2:37 PM

In its plan to concentrate more of its efforts on improving its status as a portal, Yahoo continues to roll out new properties and products, this week adding "Shine," a new Web site for women.

According to Brandon Holley, Shine's editor-in-chief, Shine will combine content from three main sources: the "best bloggers and writers" from women's magazines and online sites; other Yahoo vehicles, such as Yahoo Food and Yahoo Tech; and thirdly, Shine's readers themselves.

"We wanted to avoid all of the buckets that advertisers or marketers tend to put us in. We didn't want to be a site just for moms or just for single or working women, or any specific demo- or psychnographic," Holley wrote on her blog this morning. "We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info and connect with each other and the world around them. The important thing wasn't how to talk to a 32.5-year-old with 2.2 kids but how to inspire you [to] laugh, think, get mad, empathize, and be surprised and entertained."

Like Yahoo's recently launched Buzz "starting point," Shine appears to be part of a larger three-year "plan of financial independence" unveiled by Yahoo CEO Jerry Wang a couple of weeks ago.

"Our goal is to grow visits to key Yahoo starting points and properties, where users enter the Internet, by 15 percent year-over-year over the next several years. We are the most visited site in the US, and we continue to grow -- we experienced double-digit growth [among] users in 2007 on our Yahoo.com home page," Yang wrote in a letter to shareholders, dated February 13, aimed at fending off an acquisition by Microsoft.

Shine faces competition from Web sites ranging from NBC Universal's iVillage, as well as online versions of traditional women's magazines; and on the outskirts, to the newer Sk*rt and WOWOWOW.

But Yahoo's various content vehicles have been generating considerable traffic. According to recent research by Hitwise, Yahoo ranks in the top five of US technology meia sites, Yahoo Food lands in the top ten, and Buzz produced only ten percent less traffic in its first ten weeks than the much longer established Digg.

Comments

I guess the male version will be

reality.yahoo.com

Score: 0

|

I hope they will have those Iron shaped optical mice. The wife is always complaining her Microsoft optical is not designed with women in mind.

Score: 0

|

Very lame and unmanly.

Score: 0

|

Silverlight 3 goes live on Microsoft's servers

Microsoft's answer to Adobe's Flash is (unofficially) here, with prospects of higher-speed, higher-resolution video and for the first time, 3D.

Three Android phones on the way from T-Mobile in 2009

T-Mobile's myTouch 3G, launched Wednesday, will be followed by two more Android phones later this year, but neither of them will be HTC's Hero.

Best Buy-brand TVs to get TiVo

A new alliance will place the retailer's own brand alongide the manufacturers, and could also lead to future partnerships on services.

LTE still lacks a voice

The 4G Wireless standard that Verizon hopes to show off before this year is out is still at a loss for (spoken) words.

Data sharing among online advertisers: Is sanity in sight?

Lockdown with Angela Gunn In the middle of a 15-page plea not to get regulated, a spark of smart thinking.

T-Mobile's strategy to combat Apple's iPhone with Android

With a trio of Android phones now in the pipeline for 2009, T-Mobile hopes to break the iPhone's emerging stranglehold.

EC's Reding: Government should act as broker for media downloads

If Internet media services don't step up and build an attractive way for users to start paying for downloads, a commissioner says, government may do the job instead.

Sony TVs get Netflix, still no PS3

Though it's coming in behind LG, Samsung, and Microsoft, Sony will begin to offer Netflix streaming, too.

Google Chrome OS: Too little, too early

Carmi Levy: Wide Angle Zoom Don't start the revolution just yet, says Carmi, who isn't so certain Chrome OS will be the "Windows Killer."

GAO pen test brings the hammer down on federal rent-a-cops

But are the computers to blame for the contract-guard fiasco at FPS?

What's Next: Chrome OS will have at least some friends in high places

Also: South Korea takes another round of DDoS abuse, and Neelie Kroes and Steve Ballmer may shake hands before she exits stage left.

Report: Evidence of further creativity with Windows 7 upgrade prices

A ZDNet blogger did some serious digging for clues as to a reported price break on multiple Windows 7 Home Premium licenses, and may have found it.