The consequences of Yahoo's new homepage for newspapers

One of the functions of social search that Yahoo envisions is movie, music and restaurant reviews. Such a function combined with Yahoo's expanding local sites cuts into one of the aspects of the "indispensable" newspaper; reader reviews would be an integral part of any local papers trying to create a hub of information for their community.

Yahoo News is also getting a makeover that will compete with newspapers. The search engine's news site is respected more by traditional journalists than it's rival GoogleNews because it uses human editors alongside computers whereas Google's editorial selection is based purely on algorithm. 

But their editing is about to expand. Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo's Media Group, aspires to give readers a comprehensive choice of stories about a subject from different types of sources. "We want to take the user on a journey," said Braun. "We have to make sure that the user never reaches a dead end."

In doing that, Yahoo is "going to spend more time framing choices for the users," encroaching more on the role of editors at newspapers. This editing will include video, a feature that newspaper newsrooms need to implement on their websites, but haven't found the best way to do.

With this redesign, Yahoo could steal even more consumers from the webpages of traditional media companies. But the fact is, Yahoo still needs news content to survive. If it siphons the audience, and thus the revenue, from traditional media, what will be left on its own site, especially because Yahoo has abandoned most plans for original content production? 

Chances are, reciprocal partnerships will increasingly be established between new and old media. Just as TV broadcasters have had to share revenues from programming they post online with their affiliates, news aggregators and search engines like Yahoo need to give a little back to the content producers to maintain their symbiotic relationship.

Sources: Financial Times, Reuters, The Guardian