Revamped Yahoo News aims to pull readers, ad dollars from rivals

MUMBAI: Yahoo unveiled a faster, customisable news feed as the struggling internet giant continues to fight to attract younger followers and critical ad dollars away from Google, Facebook and Twitter.

The revamped Yahoo News follows February?s overhaul of Yahoo?s home page and subsequent changes to Yahoo Sports, which are now designed to provide a uniform feel across PCs, iPhones, iPads and will soon be seen on Android phones and tablets, said Yahoo News product management lead Chris Motes.

"The new Yahoo News is clean and simple and offers a more beautiful design that is new and fresh, but also familiar," Motes told this newspaper Thursday.

Yahoo viewers now will receive an "endless stream" of news stories that they can customize by telling Yahoo whether they want more -- or fewer -- of the kinds of stories they?re seeing. And they?ll get their Yahoo News "much quicker," Motes said. He could not immediately quantify how much faster, but said "it?s significant."

Yahoo revamped its home page, "user interactions" have increased 25 percent, the company said at its last shareholder meeting. Martin Pyykkonen, Internet analyst for Wedge Partners, likes the changes he?s seeing at Yahoo.

"If you?re feeling the news is more targeted to you, you?ll stay there longer, and before you know it, you?ve gone through 15 page views and that makes it easier for them (Yahoo) to monetize it, instead of Google getting the page views," Pyykkonen said. "It?s not a game-changer and it?s not supposed to be. It?s more going with the sign of the times."

Pyykkonen described Yahoo?s endless news feed as "sort of Twitterish," which is exactly the target audience that Yahoo wants and needs.

While not a game-changer by itself, the overhauled Yahoo News is another piece of an overall strategy to revamp the Yahoo brand, attract younger readers and more ad dollars to prop up Yahoo?s fortunes.