San Francisco - Yahoo launched a website for women on Monday hoping to attract new audiences and advertisers that could help it fend off an unwanted takeover bid from Microsoft. The site, called Shine, combines news, features, analysis and blogs aimed at women between the ages of 25 and 54.
The content will be a hybrid of original material and articles from magazines like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Glamour, and the goal is the make Shine the top destination in the lifestyles category, according to Amy Iorio, general manager of Lifestyles at Yahoo.
"This is really a key audience for Yahoo," Iorio told News.com. "We have been calling them 'chief household officers' internally."
The new site was launched as Yahoo continues its efforts to thwart a takeover bid from Microsoft. Yahoo's board last month rejected Microsoft's 41-billion-dollar offer as undervalued, and took steps to prevent Microsoft from going straight to shareholders via a proxy battle.
The cash-and-stock offer was initially valued at 44.6 billion dollars, a 62 per cent premium over Yahoo shares' trading value the day before the offer was announced at the end of January. Since then, a 12 per cent decline in Microsoft shares has reduced the total value of the offer to 41.9 billion dollars, or 29.11 dollars a share.
Yahoo claims that the company is undervalued as it is set to reap the benefits of a new advertising system and other innovations. But executives of the two companies met last month in a session designed to allow Microsoft to present its vision of a combined company, according to reports.
