Yahoo on Thursday announced the launch of a digital newsstand, initially available on Apple iPad and Android tablets.
"Livestand from Yahoo" will deliver personalized content results from various publishers, starting with Yahoo's content portfolio of Sports, News, Finance, Flickr, omg!, and the Yahoo Contributor Network.
Displayed in a magazine-style format, content will be chosen based on a user's selected interests, location, and time of day, Yahoo said. The platform hopes to attract publishers with an easy, one-size-fits-all approach to producing content.
Livestand will launch in the first half of 2011, initially on tablets, and then to mobile phones and browsers.
"With Livestand, we're using ad formats that evoke the emotion of TV advertising with a highly-visual magazine-like experience," Blake Irving, executive vice president and chief product officer of Yahoo, said in a blog post. "And they're combined with the effectiveness of an Internet ad that's data-rich, actionable, even location aware. It's all personalized and in context – just like our content." To receive an early invite, go to Yahoo's Livestand homepage and click to "Like" it on Facebook.
Thanks to the rising popularity of tablets, media companies have been scrambling to find ways to cash in on consumer interest in productivity and media tablet apps. In January, AOL announced a magazine-style iPad app with customized content results, AOL Editions. Flipboard and Rupert Murdoch's The Daily are similar digital magazine apps offering a magazine look and feel.
On Thursday morning, Yahoo also announced the departure of Eric Hippeau, the Huffington Post's outgoing CEO, from its board of directors. His seat will be filled by David Kenny, president of Akamai Technologies.