Internet company Yahoo is coming to SA. It plans to launch an SA news and information portal this month, TechCentral has established.
The move would put it in direct competition with Microsoft’s Howzit MSN, which is operated under licence by Kagiso Media.
Unlike Google, Yahoo has never had a substantial presence in SA. Yahoo’s SA portal is slated to go live on 17 November, according to the company’s Facebook page. It has already recently created a Twitter handle called “Yahoo! South Africa” at @YahooNewsSA.
Statistics from Effective Measure, the analytics firm that measures website traffic for members of the Digital Media & Marketing Association (DMMA), show Howzit MSN is the second biggest website in SA (among DMMA members) after the Naspers-owned News24, generating 26,6m page views from 1,7m unique visitors in October.
A Yahoo spokesman confirms it is launching in SA soon, but declines to provide any further information. The company says more information about its plans in SA will be provided before the end of November.
The @YahooNewsSA Twitter account says Yahoo SA “brings you in-depth coverage of news from SA and around the world, including finance, sport, entertainment and breaking news”. It also provides a URL — www.za.yahoo.com — that points to a page that doesn’t yet exist.
Its Facebook page offers the same description, but adds that “all stories are handpicked” by the Yahoo SA news editor.
In a post to its own wall, Yahoo says Yahoo News SA launches on 17 November. — Craig Wilson, TechCentral
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