Yahoo continues to recast itself and debuts two new ad features
Aiming to make Yahoo more "personal, intuitive, and immersive," CEO Marissa Mayer announces ad units that cater to users' interests.
As Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer continues to work to reformulate the company as a modern mobile-forward search engine with new products and features, she's also thinking about earning revenue the good old-fashioned way -- advertising.
The company launched two new ad features on Monday. One is a new way of introducing ads called Yahoo Stream Ads, and the other is a redesigned Yahoo Billboard.
"As we continue to build products and features that inspire and entertain our users, we're committed to delivering engaging and effective advertising opportunities," Mayer wrote in a blog post Monday. "Over the past few months, we've begun to evolve the Yahoo experience to be more personal, intuitive, and immersive -- incorporating more modern paradigms like our news stream."
Yahoo Stream ads will run next to Yahoo's news feed, a bit like Google ads. Mayer wrote that "Stream Ads are the sponsored twin to our newsfeed articles and are every bit as personalized and engaging." As users spend more time on Yahoo, the ads will become more personalized to users' interests.
The redesigned Billboard aims to offer users more content. What it does is feature some sort of product and then gives users more links for additional information. For example, when the Yahoo video player features the trailer of a movie, users will be able to click for film information and tickets.
Coming in as CEO less than a year ago, Mayer has been working on new ways to rethink the company. And, like every other company making its living on the Internet, Mayer has placed mobile at the center of her product strategy. Introducing these two new ad features appear to be right in line with her methodology. Currently Stream Ads are available on both mobile and PCs, while Billboard is only available on PCs at this time.
Correction, May 1 at 5:55 p.m. PT: The original version of this article stated Billboard was available on both PCs and mobile, it was corrected to state it's only available on PCs at this time.