Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are redefining the online news experience, but in diverging ways that underscore the evolving identities of the search giants. Last week, Yahoo unveiled the Upshot, a blog created by the Sunnyvale portal's growing staff of editors and reporters, who will use search and other user data to help determine what they'll cover and how. That announcement followed the introduction of a new version of Google News, which allows users to customize the content they see, but leaves the writing and editing to others.
"It reaffirms the fact that Yahoo is trying to be a media company, have its own content and keep people at Yahoo, whereas Google is the opposite," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, a site covering the industry.
Yahoo is already the most popular news site, with nearly 41 million unique visitors in 2009, according to Nielsen. It licenses content from hundreds of newspapers, wire services and other sources, and supplements those stories with links to stories that its editors and search algorithms pull in from around the Web.
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