Yahoo 'Hybrid' Now Dominates News Web Sites
In a contest between man and machine, traditional news Web sites are facing competition from online challengers that employ computers as editors -- Google Inc. being the prime example.
But challenging them all is the news site of Yahoo Inc., a hybrid that pairs human oversight with automation and serves up news from multiple sources. In six of the past 14 months, Yahoo's news site has drawn more unique visitors than any rival, displacing longtime news leader CNN.com, according to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
Yahoo's rise comes as some traditional news organizations rethink their online strategies. Some that have offered free content are now considering charging for some items. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., for example, last September imposed monthly fees for nonprint subscribers to access some of its content online. At the same time, New York Times Co., Dow Jones & Co. (publisher of The Wall Street Journal) and others are acquiring Internet companies to broaden their Web offerings, and audiences.
The ascent of a free, online-only organization on their news turf highlights some of the challenges facing traditional media with a narrow selection of online services. Analysts say the vast majority of visitors to Yahoo News arrive there from other Yahoo sites, whose offerings range from Web videogames to job listings and e-mail.
"Is Yahoo a threat to the business model of traditional news organizations? Yeah," says Paul Grabowicz, director of the New Media program at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. "But it's not a threat that's going to go away. And if it's not Yahoo, it's somebody else."
A decade into the consumer Internet revolution, industry executives and analysts say users favor sites that offer information from more than one news organization. Yahoo, for example, has agreements to display or link to content from about 100 news organizations, from USA Today to French news service Agence France Presse. Users can search through about 7,000 additional online news sources that Yahoo catalogs for information.
MSNBC.com, jointly owned by Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co., edged out Yahoo in March for the top news site in terms of unique visitors, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. MSNBC.com, which employs 65 editorial staffers, also offers news from a variety of sources, including NBC News, CNBC, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and Reuters. Like Yahoo News, it benefits from strong ties to a popular portal site. Microsoft's MSN directs users to MSNBC.com for news.
By contrast with Yahoo News, which has no reporters, Time Warner Inc.'s CNN.com relies on hundreds of CNN correspondents and producers for articles, complemented by reports from the AP and Reuters. A CNN spokeswoman says its site ranks "consistently at the top" of online-news rankings and benefits from the growth in online news.
"Years ago, it was sufficient to seek out a single source and rely on that," says Neil Budde, the founding editor of the online Wall Street Journal, whom Yahoo hired as its news director last November. Now, Yahoo is highlighting its one-stop approach to many sources with a redesigned news site it planned to launch in a test release yesterday. The new site allows consumers to flip quickly among headlines from different news organizations without waiting for Web pages to reload, and to place text feeds from Web blogs and other sites alongside news headlines.
Like Yahoo, Google displays news from multiple sites, saying it draws on more than 4,500 news sources in English. But it typically does not have agreements to feature them on its site, which can cause trouble. In March, the AFP sued Google for displaying its photos and article excerpts on Google's news site without the French news agency's consent. A Google spokesman did not respond to requests for comment for this article. An AFP attorney declined to comment.
The Associated Press, too, generally believes it "deserves reimbursement" for its content online, says AP New Media Markets director Jane Seagrave. She declines to say whether the AP is discussing the matter with Google, whose news site often links to AP articles.
In assembling its news page by computers that scour the Web, Google comes up with occasionally humorous results. It has featured parody news articles and reports by partisan political organizations as its top headlines, for example. Google News ranked 11th among news sites in terms of unique visitors last month, according to Nielsen/Netratings.
Yahoo's news strategy dates back to the mid-1990s, when it cut deals with the likes of Reuters PLC to display headlines alongside its human-compiled directory of the Web. Yahoo created its "full coverage" service, where editors bring together stories from multiple sources on the same topic, following the August 1995 death of Jerry Garcia, leader of the band the Grateful Dead. Frustrated that he couldn't find a single place with multiple news stories, Yahoo co-founder David Filo initiated the editor-selected coverage.
Yahoo won't say how many editors it has today, but the small news operation across the street from Yahoo's Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters currently has room for roughly 15 to 20 editorial staffers. Mr. Budde says their ranks have been growing with the redesign and plans for more packaging of stories.
The editors monitor stories arriving from news organizations, choose headlines for Yahoo's home page, and pull together links to stories on big topics. On election night in November, Yahoo editors made their own calls as to which presidential candidate had won each state before coloring in the electoral map on their site.
Yahoo credits traffic from other parts of its site with pushing it into the No. 1 online-news slot. New York research firm Hitwise Inc. estimates that more than 85% of Yahoo news visitors arrive there from another part of Yahoo -- an advantage over most of its traditional media rivals.
Yahoo also sends visitors to other news sites, but in much smaller numbers. Hitwise estimates that about 1% of the visitors to CNN.com come from Yahoo News.
雅虎荣登新闻网站榜首
新一轮人机大战已经揭开序幕，传统的新闻网站面临著电脑编辑的网上挑战，Google Inc.就是最典型的例子。
但他们共同面对的挑战则是雅虎(Yahoo Inc.)的新闻网站──人机合作撷取众多来源提供新闻的创举。Nielsen/NetRatings的数据显示，过去14个月当中的6个月内，雅虎新闻网站吸引的唯一用户数量超过任何一家竞争对手，取代了长期占据霸主地位的CNN.com。
雅虎脱颖而出，正值一些传统的新闻机构重估其网络战略之际。一些免费提供内容的新闻机构开始考虑就部分内容收取费用，Spokesman-Review就是其一。去年9月，Spokesman-Review开始要求非印刷版订户交纳包月费，否则他们就无法看到该公司网站上的一些内容。此外，纽约时报公司(New York Times Co.)和道琼斯公司(Dow Jones & Co.)等新闻机构则在不断兼并互联网公司，以拓展自己的网上内容和读者群。
免费的、纯粹通过网站提供新闻内容的机构日渐兴起，给网络服务范围有限的传统媒体带来了一些挑战。分析师们认为，进入雅虎新闻(Yahoo News)频道的绝大多数访客都是从雅虎的其他频道转过去的。雅虎琳琅满目的各个频道提供包罗万象的服务，从网络游戏、招聘到电子邮件服务无所不包。
加州大学伯克利分校新闻学院的新兴媒体课程(New Media)主任保罗?格莱博威茨(Paul Grabowicz)说，“雅虎是否对传统新闻机构的商业模式构成了威胁？是的。但这种威胁不会逐渐消散，如果不是雅虎，也会是别的网站。”
互联网消费革命兴起十年之后，业内管理人士和分析师都说，用户更喜欢提供多渠道新闻报导的网站。以雅虎为例，它就同《今日美国》(USA Today)、法新社(Agence France Presse, 简称AFP)等大约100多家新闻机构达成了协议，转载它们的新闻内容或者提供与它们网站的链接。用户可以在雅虎的信息内容中搜索大约7,000个网络新闻来源。
Nielsen/NetRatings的数据显示，今年3月份，由微软(Microsoft Corp.)和通用电气(General Electric Co.)合资的MSNBC.com击败雅虎，成为吸引新注册用户数量最多的新闻网站。
MSNBC.com有65名编辑，提供来自NBC News、CNBC、《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)、美联社(Associated Press, 简称AP)和路透社(Reuters)等多种渠道的新闻。和雅虎新闻频道一样，它也与知名的门户网站建立了强大的合作关系，依托微软的MSN将用户吸引到MSNBC.com来查阅新闻。
与没有自己记者的雅虎新闻网站不同，时代华纳(Time Warner Inc.)CNN.com依托的是CNN遍布世界各地的上百名记者和制作人，并借助美联社和路透社的报道来提供新闻内容。CNN发言人称，CNN.com在网络新闻站点的排名中“持续名列前茅”，从网络新闻的发展趋势中大获其利。
《华尔街日报》网络版的首任编辑、去年11月被雅虎挖去担任新闻主管的奈尔?布德(Neil Budde)说，要是几年前，还可以只通过一条渠道检索新闻并依赖于此。现在，雅虎重新设计了新闻频道，并在周三推出了试用版，以大力提倡一步到位检索众多新闻渠道的方式。
雅虎新推出的新闻频道允许用户迅速浏览不同新闻机构提供的新闻标题，无需等待网页重新下载，还可以检索网络日志的文字内容，以及跟随新闻标题的其他站点。
和雅虎类似，Google也提供不同来源的新闻，自称英语新闻来源超过4,500家。但Google并没有签署协议以获得提供这些新闻内容的授权，这恐怕是一个隐患。
今年3月，法新社就起诉了Google，称后者未经授权就披露了法新社拥有版权的照片和报道摘要。Google发言人没有答复记者就此寻求评论的电话，法新社一位律师也拒绝置评。
美联社新媒体市场(AP New Media Markets)的主管简?西格雷夫(Jane Seagrave)说，美联社也基本认同其他网站登载美联社新闻内容“应该付费”的观点。她拒绝透露美联社是否正在同Google协商此事。Google的新闻站点常常链接到美联社的报道。
Google靠电脑在浩瀚的互联网大海中搜索新闻网页，时而得出让人啼笑皆非的结果。有时会把似是而非的新闻报导，或者党派组织的报道列为首要搜索结果。Nielsen/Netratings的数据表明，上个月Google的新闻频道在吸引新注册用户方面排名第十一位。
雅虎的新闻战略可以追溯到上世纪九十年代中期，当时雅虎和路透集团(Reuters PLC)等新闻机构达成协议，在人工编制的网页目录上显示路透社的新闻标题。1995年8月Grateful Dead乐队的队长杰利?加西亚(Jerry Garcia)去世时，雅虎首创了“全套”新闻服务，编辑们将不同新闻机构就同一主题的报道综合在一起，放在网站上。雅虎的共同创始人大卫?费洛(David Filo)苦于无法找到一个能够提供多种新闻报导的地方，才提议推出由编辑选编的新闻服务。
雅虎不愿透露现在自己有多少编辑，但距公司总部不远处规模不大的新闻部门办公室大致可容纳15到20名编辑人员。布德说，版面更新后该部门的人数不断增多，他们还计划推出更多新闻服务。
编辑们查看来自不同新闻机构的新闻报道，从雅虎主页上挑选新闻标题，把重大事件相关报道的网页链接整理到一起。
雅虎把新闻频道荣登网络新闻站点榜首的功劳归于雅虎其他频道，纽约研究机构Hitwise Inc.估计，访问雅虎新闻频道的用户85%都是从雅虎其他频道转过来的，这正是雅虎傲视大多数传统媒体竞争对手的优势所在。
雅虎也会为其他新闻网站贡献访客，但数量很少。Hitwise估计，CNN.com只有大约1%的访客来自雅虎新闻。
