Yahoo bets on citizen journalism and blogs

Steve Rubel has an inciteful post this morning about Yahoo’s move into publishing it’s own content, via blogs and citizen journalism no less.

I have always viewed Yahoo as a media company that just happened to be fueled by search for the time being. Prior to coming to Yahoo, Terry Semel, its CEO and Chair, spent 24 years at Warner Bros., most noted for his role as chairman and co-chief executive officer where he helped build Warner Bros. into one of the world’s largest and most creative media and entertainment enterprises.

Anyhow, Steve posts:

Over the past few months Yahoo has been recruiting a slew of veteran online journalists. In many cases these hires have a particular expertise in social media. The latest, according to Matt McAlister (one of these smart folks), is pioneer Elizabeth Osder. She reported to work yesterday at the Yahoo Media Group as its senior director, social media, reporting to Neil Budde, executive producer of Yahoo News. Matt writes…

‘She’ll be responsible for what Yahoo Media VP Scott Moore tells me is one of his top three initiatives. (The other two are broadband and the user experience.) Moore said Osder’s hiring is ‘a clear indicator of our intention to go deep in social media and user-generated content.’ Her initial task will be to set up a plan that integrates Yahoo’s growing phalanx of social media tools — Yahoo 360, Flickr, etc. — with an emphasis on interesting user-generated content.’

Steve’s bet is that Yahoo is dabbling in news blogs where they’ll turn to citizen media and blogs to continue doing what Yahoo does best, differentiating through human aggregation.