Yahoo this morning unveiled Livestand, a tablet-friendly personalized ‘digital newsstand’.
Yahoo Livestand is slated to be available to consumers as iPad and Android tablet apps in the first half of 2011. No word on pricing, however.
For publishers, Yahoo promises that they can use Livestand to develop their publication once and easily deploy it on most popular tablet devices, but in a highly personalized fashion.
Advertisers, on the other hand, will be able to “create personalized brand experiences with ads that adapt and respond to user interaction and combine the interactivity of a tablet with a brand building, TV-like, ad experience.”
From the sound of it, the Livestand platform will not remain tablet-only long, but should be getting a version that’s fit for modern smartphones and mobile browsers in the near future.
Yahoo content – which includes Sports, News, Finance but also services like Flickr as well as the Yahoo Contributor Network – will initially power Livestand. Content from other publishers will evidently join the line-up, although who and when remains to be seen.
We’ll be looking for a demo and hopefully more information at next week’s Mobile World Congress, where Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is scheduled to speak.
Truth to be told, there’s a lot of room for improvements in personalized content delivery on smartphones and tablets, so I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing how Yahoo thinks it cracked that nut.
Blake Irving, EVP and Chief Product Officer at Yahoo, sure sets the bar high:
With Livestand from Yahoo!, what you’re reading will be personalized based on your interests, your location and even the time of day. Your experiences, which will begin on tablet form factors, will include intuitive touch interactions and an elegant design that focuses foremost on the content.
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