Did you know that Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995 gave life to what we now know as Yahoo! News? On that grim day for Deadheads everywhere, co-founder David Filo compiled a webpage with links and outsourced information on Garcia’s life and death. That was the first example of Yahoo! gathering the most relevant content around a news topic, regardless of where it came from. Today Yahoo! News is excited to continue in David’s footsteps — in Web 2.0 fashion.

Alan Warms today joins Yahoo! as the general manager of News through the acquisition of BuzzTracker. BuzzTracker does just what the name insists — it tracks 110,000 content sources (traditional media and blogs) to take the pulse of what’s happening in various topic areas on the Net. Alan and the folks at BuzzTracker have come up with a way to spotlight the hottest information and give users a tool that makes the information easily digestible.

I’ve known Alan for years, but we got reacquainted at the All Things D conference in May. I realized then that we share the same vision for news — providing the best news content possible, whether traditional or citizen journalism, to a mainstream audience while making the technology invisible. He’s a serial entrepreneur with a history of developing new media technologies, but his mantra is “Does it pass the Mom test?” Alan has both fantastic editorial judgment and a strong business sense — a boon to both our users and advertisers.

Yahoo! News is the number one news site with 35 million readers per month (that’s about 15 times the circulation of the largest newspaper in the U.S.!) and while we know we’re doing something right, we recognize there are still many opportunities ahead. Does this signal a radical shift for how we’ll run Yahoo! News? No. BuzzTracker technology will help improve the breadth and relevancy of our content — regardless of the source. But with Alan on board, we’ll bring organization to the thousands of conversations happening across the Internet and help users better sift through the news to find what they care about most.

Here’s Alan’s take on it.

Scott Moore
Head of News & Information

John McCain, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Tommy Thompson, Chris Dodd, Joseph Biden, Mike Huckabee… Election Day 2008 is still more than 20 months away, but the campaign is already in full swing. The Internet is predicted to play a larger role than ever before, and Yahoo! in particular intends to be at the forefront.

In the last presidential campaign, 75 million Americans used the Internet to get news, email people about candidates, and participate directly in the political process (according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project). A little-known governor from Vermont got remarkably far in his long-shot bid thanks to his campaign manager’s Net savvy. Bloggers were provided official press passes to the national conventions. Both Senator Kerry and President Bush used email lists as part of their grassroots and fundraising efforts. And even the likes of JibJab illustrated how effective online video could be on the campaign trail.

Fast-forward to today, a time when social media is changing the face of citizen engagement, how news is reported, how people connect with one another, and virtually all expectations of transparency. You can bet that campaigns will adjust their tactics to respond to this growing phenomenon. For example, already six candidates are using Flickr to post photos from their campaign — kissing babies, making speeches, rallying supporters, having quiet moments. We’ve also seen Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton ask questions on Yahoo! Answers. (Incidentally, the 38,000 responses to Hillary’s question on health care helped her beat Oprah Winfrey for most answers to any question.) Campaigns are quickly becoming wise to social media tools, and we intend to lead the way.

At Yahoo! News, we’ve pulled together an über-site to help you engage in the 2008 campaign. In addition to the latest news videos, headlines, and political commentary, you’ll find dedicated pages for each candidate. If you catch a campaign event, upload your photos or video to Flickr, Yahoo! Video or You Witness News — or all three. Feeling like a pundit? Look for a Yahoo! Answers question to weigh in on. Want to find birds of a feather? Join a Yahoo! Group related to your party or candidate. This early version of the site is just a start — tools like MyBlogLog and Upcoming.org will be incorporated soon. Look for it to evolve with even more bells and whistles as we approach game day.

Our goal is to make Yahoo! the town hall for voters across America. We look at it this way: There are red states and blue states, but the 20% of voters in the middle normally decide campaigns. Since red and blue make purple, who better than Yahoo! to help these voters engage and connect with the issues and personalities?

I encourage all of you to not only pay attention, but get involved in this important election. There are more tools to do so than ever before. Help us prove that the Internet has the power to make ours a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Scott Moore
Head of News & Information

Photo from * Toshio *