Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc will begin dispensing advice about personal finances in its latest bid to boost its own finances.
The new money management package, which was scheduled to make its debut on Thursday night, is being offered as an extension of Yahoo's decade-old finance section -- one of the Web's top-ranked destinations for business and investment information.
Yahoo is battling to maintain its status as the most visited Web site in the US, although many analysts give the company little hope of holding on to those bragging rights now that Internet search leader Google Inc owns the heavily trafficked video sharing site YouTube.
Finance is one of the areas where Yahoo holds a huge advantage over Google, which branched into the field just 10 months ago. With 9.6 million US visitors last month, Yahoo's finance section ranked second behind Microsoft Corp's MSN Money, according to comScore Media Metrix. Google's finance section did not draw enough traffic to show up on Media Metrix's listings.
Yahoo decided to widen its focus to include more simple money matters because many people are more interested in balancing their checkbooks than juggling their stock portfolios, said Scott Moore, who runs the company's news and information division.
By reaching out to a broader audience, Yahoo hopes to lure more advertisers and accelerate recently lackluster revenue growth that has lagged far behind the pace of Google. That gap is expected to be accentuated again during the next two weeks as Yahoo and Google report their fourth-quarter earnings.
The personal finance section will include tips and tools for household budgeting, tax planning, careers, real estate and debt management. Most of the content will be provided by other sources, including the Wall Street Journal, the Motley Fool, Consumer Reports and CNNMoney.com.
Yahoo's decelerating growth has disillusioned investors, contributing to a 28 percent decline in the company's stock price since 2005.
A slowdown in financial services advertising late last year exacerbated Yahoo's misery, but Moore said the company already was already developing a personal finance section before that problem came up.
The personal finance initiative represents the third new information channel launched in the past eight months, following sections revolving around technology and food.
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