Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Yahoo! to launch Social News Site

Yahoo! has announced that it will become the latest business to join the social news revolution. The search engine giant’s new venture, Yahoo! Buzz, joins websites such as Digg and Reddit in allowing users to choose the news articles that appear on the site.

By allowing users to choose their own new stories, Yahoo! Buzz will allow people to interact with the site in a way that echoes social networking. It works by letting users send messages to the site as they browse the web, meaning that they can alert Yahoo! to interesting stories. These messages are sent by pressing a ‘Buzz button’ on the bottom of a news article, which registers a vote for that item. The stories with the most votes will then be featured on the Yahoo! Buzz homepage. So far, Yahoo! has already persuaded around 100 publications to feature Buzz buttons on their site, including USA Today and The Economist.

Although users get to pick most of the stories on Yahoo! Buzz, the Yahoo! editorial team have the final say. Yahoo! have decided on this measure to prevent violent, aggressive or illegal articles being displayed on the site, which occurred last year on Digg. The site accidentally published a number of news stories telling people how to overcome the specialist software designed to stop the copying of HD DVDs, which is against the law.

Yahoo! Buzz is an important project for Yahoo! as Chairperson Jerry Yang attempts to rebuild his ailing business and fend off aggressive takeover threats from Microsoft. The company has also improved its search engine in an attempt to make it as sophisticated as Google. The new and improved Yahoo! search offers users more detailed search results, which should help them find the information they need more quickly than ever.

Source:

The Times