Hear us roar

Posted March 31st, 2008 at 12:33 am by Brandon Holley, Yahoo! Shine

 10 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

This isn’t exactly a secret, but we’ve unveiled a new website for women today, called Yahoo! Shine.

When our editorial team — which includes editors that hail from Lucky to Jane to the Wall Street Journal — sat down to conceive it, we wanted to avoid all of the buckets that advertisers or marketers tend to put us in. We didn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info, and connect with each other and the world around them. The important thing wasn’t how to talk to a 32.5 year-old with 2.2 kids but how to inspire you laugh, think, get mad, empathize, and be surprised and entertained.

Shine melds content from the best writers and bloggers in women publishing (Glamour, Self, Bon Appetit, Redbook, Cosmo, InStyle, Women’s Health… to name just a few) with editorial from popular Yahoo! properties like Yahoo! Health, Yahoo! Tech, Yahoo! Food, and Yahoo! Green with content created by you. That’s right — we want you to be a part of it, not just a bystander. This isn’t a magazine or a TV show where you are an inactive participant — you help create the site. We want you to blog (go here to start your own, it’s pretty easy… and your post could be featured as prominently as partner content), comment on articles, vote in our daily polls, join in the harangue as we discuss daily events.

What you won’t find on Shine: Advice on how to please your man and diets that urge you to “lose 10 pound fast!” What you will find on Shine: Why buying an expensive “It Bag” is a waste of money; how to make a meal in 30 minutes and how to make a face mask out of last night’s 30-minute meal (okay not really, but you get the idea); how to de-stress at your desk; sharp, opinionated takes on the news; and finally, that you aren’t alone in your “Dancing with the Stars” obsession.

We women are experiencing something very cool happening in our culture today and Shine plans to be right in the middle of it. We’ve got a woman campaigning for the top job in the country, female bloggers now outnumber men, and we’ve got Tina Fey writing a hit network show, for goodness sakes. We no longer need to stand by passively as the media portrays us as fashion-obsessed diet victims. With the Internet as our megaphone, we can now portray ourselves as funny, opinionated women who are in charge of our incomes, careers, families, and happiness.

And isn’t that all we’ve ever wanted?

Brandon Holley
Editor-in-Chief, Yahoo! Shine

Tagged: news, yahoo! shine

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10 Comments Add your own

Comeon | March 31st, 2008 at 7:05 am

Yay! Just what the world needs! Another kibu.com!

Sherry Baker | March 31st, 2008 at 8:05 am

A quick glance this morning told me that this may be just another iVillage — too much content and not enough CONTENT. Too cluttered and busy. My ADD brain can’t deal. I’ll be back to visit Shine in a few weeks to see if it’s settled down a bit, but I doubt that you’ll see me on a regular basis.

Paul Roe | March 31st, 2008 at 9:24 am

I am liking this a lot.
I will embrace my feminine side and frequent this very interesting addition to the web.

Good luck!
Yahoo go bragh!
[Yahoo forever!]

Sarah | March 31st, 2008 at 9:34 am

Brandon… That’s a boys name (ugh!) ;)

Sounds like a fab idea - I’m looking forward to this :)

Sally Wu | March 31st, 2008 at 2:41 pm

I spent a good deal of time on Shine, today. It feels like SOOOO many of the other online, girlie sites. What’s so special about Shine? Where are the sports, stock tips, tech reviews?

Feel free to read more about my current (yes, it may change as Shine changes) in today’s blog post: http://webpoet.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/superfluous/

Stefan Hunter | March 31st, 2008 at 2:47 pm

I love the new site - shine on Shine!

The only other good mag you missed was Cookie magazine which is like domino meets lucky meets parents.

Love it!
Stef
ShopDOWNLITE.com

Scott K | March 31st, 2008 at 5:40 pm

Looks quite impressive. Makes me jealous that I’m a man. How about something for us men too?

Jenny | March 31st, 2008 at 6:13 pm

It looks great! I bookmarked it for later reading. ;)

dhingana | April 2nd, 2008 at 6:03 pm

i love the look and feel of shine…certainly a step in the right direction…way to go yahoo!

odhrek | April 7th, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Shine is very interesting, its tough and very challenging to run something of this magnitude and responsibility.

Yahoo! should work towards providing effective ways for sites to work together, to keep user engaged while sharing revenues.
Dhingana and http://beta.gnome.in/ together seems an good example where one can listen to songs and rate designs or check designs while rating song lists, depending on which site the user has landed. Individually each site has cool potential to monetize from services offered.

In the future
Shine could work towards getting women to move from sharing content to creating and sharing sites, resources and businesses.
Shine could be more about making money for shopping then saving money while shopping.
Shine should be about creating responsible women for the future while giving resources, tools and applications for effective parenting, business and family life.