Is Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) doomed? A lot of people seem to think so, what with its troubles in China, its CEO having just got the boot, the perpetual fighting of a rearguard, losing battle against Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), and the tie-up with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) apparently bringing less-than-hoped-for extra coinage to Yahoo's bottom line.
But someone seems to have forgotten to tell Yahoo! that it's toast. The company's still in it to win it.
Eat your heart out, William Randolph Hearst
Witness the bombshell Yahoo! is set to drop, with reports indicating that a new initiative to revolutionize Web publishing is now ready for primetime. Dubbed "Livestand," Yahoo!'s latest attempt at a comeback has been hinted at for nearly a year now. The company describes the tool as a "digital newsstand" aimed at making Web publishing easier on two of the most popular tablet computer formats out there -- Google's Android mobile operating system, and Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS.
Based on new HTML5 coding, Livestand is said to display "top articles" chosen according to a user's personal preferences, with those articles being scrollable "horizontally left or right with a touch." That's the pitch to users. But since users don't actually pay for content anymore (perish the thought!), what's really key here is that Livestand can offer publishers the ability to "drop in" ads at any place convenient in an article's text -- ads that can be "updated or replaced at will," as the publisher decides what is and is not resonating with the reader. Yahoo! further touts Livestand's ability to work equally well on both Google and Apple devices as freeing publishers of the need to write content "twice," for each flavor of favored device.
According to Yahoo!, the new product will be "a game-changer" for publishers. The question now is whether it will encourage them to write more content for, and place more ads on, Yahoo!-owned websites. Tune in later this year for an update, as Livestand launches in the U.S. this autumn -- and then moves quickly to expand to Europe and the U.K. in 2012.
It isn't Livestand, but we think the Fool's new watchlist feature is still pretty neat. Monitor Yahoo!'s progress on Livestand and similar attempts to revive its flagging stock price. Add Yahoo! to your Fool watchlist today.
