Yahoo’s online news search tool added Internet journal entries alongside professional media offerings — an experiment that will test the public’s appetite for information from alternative sources.Under Yahoo’s new approach, a keyword search for online news will include a list of relevant Web logs, or “blogs,” displayed in a box to the right of the results collected from mainstream journalism.
Google, which runs the Internet’s leading search engine, has so far taken a different approach to blogs, introducing last month a specialty search engine dedicated specifically to blogs. Google’s news section continues to focus on material from mainstream media.Although many top bloggers lack formal journalism training, it hasn’t stopped them from building loyal readerships or breaking news the mainstream media either missed or ignored, which has helped rally tremendous support for “citizen journalism.”
“The traditional media doesn’t have the time or resources to cover all the stories going on,” says Joff Redfern, a Yahoo product director.