Yahoo announces digital newsstand for tablets and mobile

Feb 11, 2011   //   by admin   //   Media blog  //  No Comments

Yahoo Livestand

By Chris Hogg

Publishers seek to extend their reach with new technologies, and Yahoo has announced it is also getting in the game with the launch of Livestand, a digital newsstand designed for tablets and smartphones.

In an announcement made Thursday, Yahoo said Livestand will offer a steady stream of new content to consumers based on their interests. Livestand will be designed specifically for new tablets and mobile phones so articles, images, video and ads are optimized for the screen.

“Adoption of tablets and mobile phones is exploding, and digital media isn’t keeping up,” Blake Irving, executive vice president and chief product officer for Yahoo, said in a news release. “Consumers can’t find the publications they buy off the newsstand, and publishers and advertisers can’t reach the audiences they want to serve. We’re in a position to meet all of these needs. Livestand is an immersive environment that provides a dynamic and personalized experience for consumers, and a pipeline of fresh and active content for publishers and advertisers.”

Yahoo says content will be published from its vast content library, including Sports, News, Finance, Flickr, omg!, and the Yahoo Contributor Network.

“Livestand from Yahoo leverages Yahoo’s strengths in content and personalization and re-imagines them into a new kind of experience for the rapidly growing tablet and mobile phone categories,” a company press release touts.

Yahoo’s move to mobile and tablets comes on the heels its of research that showed 86 percent of people use mobile devices while watching TV. By bringing content to mobile and tablets, Yahoo hopes to capitalize on this expanding audience.

Yahoo says Livestand is designed to help people cut through the noise on the Web by personalizing content. Users can select content from specific sources and and factors such as time of day, location and a user’s personal interests will also be taken into consideration when content is published.

Speculation about a personalized news mobile experience surfaced earlier this week, as Yahoo already shows different content to visitors to Yahoo’s home page depending on what the company knows about their interests.

From a design perspective, Livestand promises to offer touch interaction, a sleek design and a “singular focus on content.” The platform will also leverage social interactions. From an advertising standpoint, the digital newsstand will offer targeting capabilities to specific devices and offer an interactive canvas that “brings magazine-style ads to the tablet.”

Livestand will be available for iPad and Android tablets in the first half of this year and mobile phones and browser experiences will follow after.

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