05 July 2010 | Author: J. Morton News Editor

You make the news: Yahoo! Upshot turns searches into stories

First it was the advent of news delivered via the web, then came the blogging revolution - bringing the power of mass communication to many more hands. Now, Yahoo! has revealed the next step in news creation and delivery: your search queries.

The Upshot has been scheduled to launch on Tuesday 6 July, as reported by the New York Times, and uses common search terms to drive its content. As the search stalwart already tracks these search phrases, it will be a matter of analysing trends and passing the information along to bloggers and editors.

Yahoo! officials said the goal of the project is to help journalists provide a unique user experience by creating more personalised content for readers.

"We feel like the differentiator here; what separates us from a lot of our competitors is our ability to aggregate all this data," Yahoo! Media vice president James A. Pitaro told the NYT.

"This idea of creating content in response to audience insight and audience needs is one component of the strategy, but it's a big component."

The fringe benefit for The Upstart will be for advertisers seeking to reach a specific audience, as targeting the users has already been accomplished - if all goes to plan - by the news provider.

"They have a tremendous potential power to wring higher value advertisers out of targeted content," media analyst Ken Doctor told the newspaper.

The methodology of news sourcing suggested by this model stands in contrast to the centuries-old current model, and will likely be suspect in the eyes of many in the journalism community.

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