Friday, April 25, 2008

Does Yahoo! know what women want?

At the end of March (I'm a little bit behind--the news is old, the commentary still relevant), Yahoo! announced that it was launching a women's site called Shine. (Thankfully it doesn't seem to have the requisite ! after it.) Geared towards women 25-54, the site represents a shift for Yahoo that has, until now, organized sites around topics like entertainment or sport. Shine will be constructed around a demographic and will feature nine topics: Fashion & Beauty, Food, Healthy Living, Work & Money, Love and Relationships, Parenting, At Home, Entertainment & Culture, and Astrology.
Note the lack of a Sports category. It is, in my opinion, a huge oversight by Yahoo. The Olympics are right around the corner. Women comprise the majority of Olympic viewers. So the excuse "women aren't interested in sport" just doesn't work anymore. More and more women are entering the ranks of sport fandom (have you seen all the pink paraphernalia put out my professional teams??--a topic for another day).
Shine is an excellent example of how the media isn't always responding to consumer demands (is there really a huge demand for astrological information??) but rather shaping our desires.
I still desire some information about sports. Guess I'll have to look elsewhere for it.

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