Google and Yahoo hit 'Refresh' on News
Jinfo Blog

21st July 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

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Earlier this month Yahoo Inc. introduced 'The Upshot', (http://news.yahoo.com/upshot) a pilot project that underscores the Internet giant's intention to move further into original content creation. According to editor Andrew Golis, the news blog comprises 'Eight people, six reporters and two editors, working each day to tell you what's happening in the world with short bursts of reporting and analysis'. Covering stories of national importance (with a clear U.S. focus so far) the Upshot team attempts to combine a casual, rapid-fire blogging style with high journalistic standards, saying 'Our reporters aren't just blogging about what other people are reporting; they're talking to sources and digging through documents, working to understand each story for themselves. Expect them to come up with things you won't find anywhere else, every day'. Whether or not they succeed with that intent - so far the stories are only 2-3 paragraphs and full of outbound links to primary sources - it's interesting to see Yahoo's continued evolution as a content creator, especially when it's contrasted to Google's approach to grabbing a bigger share of the news market. Google News (http://news.google.com/) , which has been around since 2002, underwent an major overhaul in June (and some further tweaking in July in response to angry customer feedback, according to a story in CNET - http://digbig.com/5bcbex). The new layout puts customisation tools at the reader's fingertips, and uses semantic techniques to identify related stories and clusters - virtually all of which link out to third party sites. If Yahoo's Upshot shows that it wants to be taken seriously as a content provider on the heels of its acquisition of Associated Content earlier this year, Google's News redesign is clearly meant to reassure publishers that it continues to consider discovery and search its primary mission. However, as Penny Crossland recently pointed out in her post http://www.vivavip.com/go/e29599), there's a world of mistrust between the two. Making Google the easiest place to discover news has serious implications for the ad revenues of the third party sites to which it links. The continued encroachment of Google and Yahoo into news puts pressure on traditional news vendors to integrate search more deeply into workflow, wherever it's happening - and the rising number of mobile apps from news vendors show is one sign that the message is being heard, loud and clear.

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