NEWS: Yahoo Launches Site Focused on Women

Yahoo Launches Site Focused on Women

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: March 31, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. on Monday launched a site for women between ages 25 and 54, calling it a key demographic underserved by current Yahoo properties.

The site, Shine, is aimed largely at giving the struggling Internet company additional opportunities to sell advertising targeted to the key decision-maker in many households. Yahoo said advertisers in consumer-packaged goods, retail and pharmaceuticals have requested more ways to reach those consumers.

Amy Iorio, vice president for Yahoo Lifestyles, said internal research also shows women are looking for a site to combine various content and communications tools.

''These women were sort of caretakers for everybody in their lives,'' she said. ''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.''

Yahoo is entering a market already served by Glam Media Inc. and iVillage, a unit ofGeneral Electric Co.'s NBC Universal. It is Yahoo's first site aimed at a single demographic, although other Yahoo sites like Finance and Sports already draw specific audiences.

With Shine, Yahoo plans to expand its offerings in parenting, sex and love, healthy living, food, career and money, entertainment, fashion, beauty, home life, and astrology.

Shine likely will replace the existing Food site over time, although Yahoo plans to keep its Health site operating to serve men and women of other age groups.

Yahoo is working with media companies like Hearst Communications Inc. and Rodale Inc. to develop Shine-exclusive content. Hearst publishes Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and other magazines aimed at women, while Rodale publishes a range of magazines on sports and recreation, including Women's Health.

Yahoo also has hired a team of editors to produce original material and to seek out items of interest from elsewhere in Yahoo.

Unlike most other Yahoo sites, Shine will be presented in a blog form, with newest items on top and commentary from an editor.

Yahoo polishes Shine for the ladies

While sites catering to females are becoming more prevalent on the web, many limit themselves by only playing to certain stereotypes. Yahoo’s new site, Shine, hopes to expand on this narrow thinking with a combination of original content, female bloggers as well as content from popular female publications such as Glamour, InStyle and Cosmopolitan.

As Yahoo summarizes its idea for the site on the Shine About page:

When we started talking about creating a new website for women, we wanted to avoid all of the common categories that advertisers or marketers tend to put us in. We didn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single women or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info and to connect with each other and the world around them.

Content owners should drop Yahoo for Google 

Jason Calacanis / The Jason Calacanis Weblog:
Yahoo made a huge critical blunder today: they decided to compete with their customers.  Today they launched a content site called Shine dedicated to women.  It looks really slick, and they make a point of talking about all the great editors …