Yahoo! India has an update, which is definitely going to pull in many star fanatics to follow this section. Yahoo! India has launched a celebrity updates aggregated section called “Yahoo Stars”. It is however in its beta stage, but allows users to browse through the latest updates, articles, images, and videos related to their favorite Bollywood and Cricket celebrities.
‘Yahoo Stars’ have only three sections as of now, which are ‘Trending Updates’, ‘Trending Stars’ and ‘Latest Followers’. There is a search menu too, wherein a user can type in the star’s name and they would see updates of that specific star only. Again, there is a drop down menu too at the top, wherein a user can toggle between updates relates to Bollywood and Cricket or have a mix of both. There is a shortlisting option too, which helps users to view the updates of only those stars, whom one follows.
If one is not following anyone and clicks on that option, it says, ‘Start following your favorite stars by clicking on ‘Follow’ against their name and you will start seeing only their updates on this page.’ The ‘Follow’ section requires users to log in with their account and follow the celebrities. The follow option is shown, whenever the user reads an article or watches a video.
Talking about the top section, the aggregated updates come by mixing information from Twitter and Yahoo properties like Yahoo Cricket and OMG! in a tabloid format. On the other hand, the middle section showcases the top trending stars based on number of followers they have. This looks nice and only the top six celebrities are listed. Moving on to the bottom section, it is all about the latest followers.
Of all, Trending updates is the most interesting section, as it features tweets, and links to articles, images and videos of all popular celebrities in a tabloid-like format. There is a filtering option for the same, so that one can view it as a media type, i.e. text, link, image, and video. By default, it has updates mixed up in every case.
Further, other options are still there, as if it is an article, one can rate it using any one of the graphic buttons present below the update; post comments on the update (which will also get posted onto their Yahoo Profiles) or share it onto Facebook and Twitter and if it’s a tweet.
Basically, this service makes use of Twitter’s Web Intents, which allows users to reply, retweet or favorite it without the need to authorize the app just for the interaction.
Talking about ‘Trending Stars’, the celebrities are categorized according to the number of followers. Clicking on their images, one can view all the details related to their individual profile, stored on ‘Yahoo Stars’.
Moving on, there is no update on its App, for smartphones and tablets.
Again, there is a bit of confusion, as to how would this service survive. Would Yahoo plan to monetize this service? If it is a promotional website, wherein Yahoo properties and Twitter updates are posted, they would definitely look into cash on in some way or the other.