With online competition for eyeballs intensifying, Web portal Yahoo Inc is launching a new site devoted to food that will feature videos and other content from celebrity chefs such as Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart.
Yahoo Food was set to launch yesterday, the first major offering from the company's Lifestyles group, based in Santa Monica, California.
"People are searching the Web and Yahoo every day for life's biggest question -- what's for dinner?" said Deanna Brown, general manager of Yahoo Lifestyles.
Yahoo has been trying to overcome slowing financial growth that has been giving investors a serious case of indigestion. The company's stock price is down by 34 percent so far this year.
Rivals such as Google Inc, which recently purchased the video site YouTube, have been aggressively adding video content to attract advertisers looking for alternatives to traditional media outlets.
Yahoo started its media division several years ago to produce more original content as well as license material on a variety of topics, including finance, entertainment, music, sports and games.
The idea for the site came from the 1.5 million food-related searches on the site each day, most of which come around 4pm, Brown said.
Yahoo Food aims to hold people's attention after they have found a recipe by offering cooking videos and lavish photography and layout that Brown refers to as "food pornography."
Brown co-founded Epicurious, one of the earliest food Web sites, which is owned by magazine publisher Conde Nast.
Meanwhile, Yahoo championed the environment on Wednesday with the launch of a Web site devoted to alternative-fuel vehicles.
Yahoo Autos Green Center promised what they described as comprehensive, unbiased, data about green cars and trucks as well as the communities that have sprung up around them. The Web site went live at autos.yahoo.com/green_center.
Yahoo Autos also teamed up with the nonprofit Environment Defense organization to give vehicles "green ratings" ranging from one to 100 based on greenhouse gas emissions, polluting exhaust, and fuel economy.
"Our Green Center is at the confluence of two large, growing trends -- green going mainstream, and the explosion of social media on the Web," said Yahoo Autos general manager Jennifer Dulski.
The Green Center sought out industry information from the Internet and combined it with content contributed by users of the search engine and its online properties. Its offerings includes information about purchase incentive programs and stations for alternative fuels such as bio-diesel made from vegetable oil. An online forum enables potential buyers to question green car owners.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
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IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
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