Today Yahoo! has launched their brand new website “Shine” to much success! Shine is a news and blog site targeting female readers ages 25-54. After looking over the site I have to give it two enthusiastic thumbs up. It is a well-organized, simple layout absolutely stuffed (but not overbearing) with useful information which I was actually interested in reading! As opposed to other news sites, there was no abundance of “fluff” articles about celebrity gossip or sex quizzes which normally flood the women’s section. Instead I found interesting and educational articles about saving money, workplace challenges, open relationship advice, politics, and entertainment. What surprised me most though was the lack of excessive advertisements. The page is uncluttered and the ads are few and far between which is a refreshing sight on a page with such a refined target market. Check it out for yourselves and tell me what you think!

“In a move to provide better data to its users, YouTube formally announced late Wednesday that it had added a free feature that will show video creators when and where viewers are watching their videos. A movie studio might run several versions of a trailer on YouTube to see what is catching on where, and if a humorous spot is catching fire in Texas, might start running that trailer as a TV ad in the state.

A political campaign could test spots of a candidate discussing the environment or the economy on YouTube; if an environmental spot is popular in Pennsylvania, that might help decide what the candidate stumps about there.

During a YouTube test of the feature, a band uploaded its music performances, determined which states it was popular in via Insight, and planned a tour around that. ” - NYTimes

I think this is a pretty good idea for the most part… I only hope that it doesn’t turn YouTube into even more of a marketing “test bay” of sorts. I’d hate to be flooded with test commercials and political statements every time I do a search for randomly funny YouTube videos or music.