Yahoo! News categorizes news article into national, international, entertainment, sports, business, lifestyle, science, and Pop culture. This categories are written from numerous sources most international and local news are usually written by associated newspaper and journalist, but other areas of Yahoo! News are contributed by regular people who have signed up the Yahoo! Contributor sign up. Being a contributor provides an outlet to be heard, to improve ones writing skill, and to be paid. Although being a writer can come from any walk of life like a students essay, specialist, free-lance writers and bloggers Yahoo has a criteria to be followed so that Yahoo! News maintains a certain standard.
A Yahoo article must be unique, relevant, engaging, informative, proofread, and well cited. Personal experience and observation is that Yahoo has lot of informative news but some of its articles do not appeal to some readers. Usually for being about pop culture people love to bash such as Twilight, Justin Bieber, and 50 shades of Grey. They are also informative "How to articles" like problems in a relationship, sex, better body, and food that get mixed response because people either people find them useful or sometimes to cliche and overused.
Health, Science and gadget news would always talk of the so-called next big thing recent like discovery of a new bacteria or new ways doctors treat patients for health news. Science would always talk of things like the discovery of the "God particle", new heavenly bodies or genetic discovery of a new DNA. Gadget news is usually about the Iphone, then Samsung and then about better internet access. Another aspect would also be human interest stories that inspires readers due to the bravery and experiences of people. People write about this stuff because they are popular topics. And people love this stuff more because they are more informed by Yahoo.
Aside from the contributors, commentators are not just readers of the topic. Commentators participate in the discussion by voicing-out their concerns in the comment section. Priority is given to people whose comment is well liked by others and also most replied meaning more people read the popular comments. Comments that turn-off people are blocked by Yahoo. Yahoo use to block the comment section from 2006 to 2010 citing comments degraded the site. This is true sometimes when comments are mean for bashing and flaming. People demanded the comment section to be reinstated citing that removing it was a disregard of the first amendment.There was a very strong desire from the audience — which is an engaged audience which has something to say — to interact with the news site at a much more profound level - Mark Walker. The comment section offered a place for readers to have a say on the topic and discuss about it. It creates an active audience where readers can critique the articles. It is a basis for the community in Yahoo because without it people would have to write another article to counter an article they disagree. The comment section provides a space where ideas are not stagnant but is engage in a discourse Although sometimes comments are about lousy jokes, spams, hateful comments and random ranting. Other times it is thought-provoking, witty, inspiring and helpful. People also get to know the author by searching the author in Yahoo. There is also a sense of anonymity in the comments since people commentators are only as good as there words and people up vote or down vote depending on what they think of the comments. People are most likely anonymous except when people show their information such as pictures and bios in their profile or when someone makes a bad comment that starts a manhunt such as the case when a commentator wanted people to drown in a certain typhoon. People posted her profile around the internet. Yahoo comments in general is a congregation of thoughts a place where people voice their opinions.
People are not just concerned with popular culture such as Kim Kardashian but also about Political elections except Kim Kardashian was searched more often than Politics. People cared about the elections, hurricane Sandy, Gas Prices, Colarado shoot-out, SOPA and KONY last 2012. People compare and talk about the economic status of there country in the forums. Some people discuss whether the authors idea in finances is feasible, good or bad. People also discuss their own financial agenda, problems, and solutions. Most US economic topics would be about real estates and stocks. Americans discuss how they dislike real estate agents costing and causing the recession. Others comment on the high standard of living Yahoo articles show by commenting how unlikely they are to afford celebrity homes or have help from government packages.
Philippine topics in economics as of now are often about government corruption such as the pork barrel scams, Jeanne Napoles and Poverty and the economic growth in the Philippines. Well in the Philippines economic, social, and political go hand in hand. Articles can be summarized in this statement. Even with economic growth, Philippines still suffer in poverty because government officials are inefficient and corrupt. Any news about China results in the Philippine community cursing the Chinese for taking Spratly Island, greed, and China made products. There is rarely comments about economics in the Philippines it always ends with government corruption and politics.
In Yahoo US, topics are more diverse and helpful since it is an international community unlike yahoo.com.ph where only Filipinos visit. Yahoo.com is visited by people all over the world. Top Snowden comments in an article involve how a low-level government employee was able to leak classified files and the irony of NSA for accusing someone of spying when in fact NSA was spying too. Political news in Yahoo also talks about the reason why they pick either side. There is a debate happening. Discussion of society in the US is more broad while the Philippines is usually about the Filipino this is because US has a more diverse ethnic culture. one day its about LGBT movement, the next it could be about African Politics or Indian rape. It is interesting to note top searches in the US involved (1) election, (2) iphone 5, (3)kim kardashian, (4)kate upton, (5)kate middleton, and (6)whitney houston. This shows us the things Americans care about which is politics, Female celebrities, and the Iphone. People do care about politics in the Philippine news however tends to spotlight one news and repeating it endlessly such as the case of NFA rice before and Jeanne Napoles as of now.
Yahoo! News is a good place to be informed but it does have its tendency to report on things that it views as a hot topic as of now in order to get more hits since a few multiplicity of viral news is more likely to have more readers than a lot of unknown news. It is still better however to read news in a more legitimate sources such as news networks and papers since Yahoo tends to attract people in its easy to read format.
Sources
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/yahoo-beats-google-top-spot-us-web-traffic-6C10974726
http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/8/comScore_Releases_July_2013_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings
https://contributor.yahoo.com/signup/
http://contributor.yahoo.com/help/guidelines/
http://paidcontent.org/2010/03/03/419-yahoo-news-brings-news-commenting-back/
http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-year-in-review-2012-141266
http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-suspected-bypassing-electronic-logs-134116925.html
