Eastham, MA - Yahoo Takes a Shine (Or, an easy way to burn that pesky fat, get your man, and live happily ever after with the best shoes in the world)

So Yahoo has launched its newest product - Shine. It is designed to appeal to what Yahoo says are the approximately 40 million women ages 25 through 54 that use Yahoo monthly. Something novel and new? A new direction for Yahoo, showing the path that will lead to its continued independence from Redmond?

Well, not exactly. It’s more like, hmmm … can you say Seven Sisters?

For those of you who, like me, grew up learning what it would be like to be a grown-up from the likes of Redbook, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, Woman’s Day, and Better Homes & Gardens, the shadow of the mass-market women’s magazines looms large. Apparently it does for Yahoo too.

Publishing giants Conde Nast and Hearst are major contributors to the effort and much of the content is drawn from the sisters owned by these two companies. But Shine is different, they say. Uhm, how exactly?

The result - which you can scan at http://shine.yahoo.com/ — is somewhat like taking one article from every existing women’s magazine - from Cosmo to Self to LHJ - and glomming them all together. Hey, I get it! It’s a mash up! I can even hear the editorial budget meeting now: Sure, it’s the same ole content, but by calling it a mash up and adding some blogs we make it new and different.

Uh-huh. Which would explain how we get headlines like these from one moment of Shine time:

• Shine Chats with Jodie Foster [featuring glam Jodie photo with the headline]
• Attention Guys: We Want Less Sex, OK?
• Ever Been to a Theme Wedding?
• A Super New Fancy Bag Line Now Sold at Target
• Pizza for Breakfast? Yes!
• Pasta vs Pushups

I don’t claim to know what women want, but I do have some ability to judge online innovation and this, dear reader, is not it.

I mean, there isn’t anything wrong with it. I even clicked on the theme wedding which was a bloggy comment on the Kate Moss pirate wedding plans and an explicit request to readers to “tell us what you think.” And another click from there and suddenly I’m at Men’s Health Mag reading about “How to be the Perfect Guy for Her.” But this is beach read/dr office wait time/salon hair processing time stuff. Easy little jellybeans, but can’t we do better than this?

Content is really hard. Everyone thinks they can be an editor, but making the magic that turns some writing and some artwork and some moving visuals into a cohesive package that reflects a brand and delivers something that people want … well, no matter what medium you work in, it is not easy and it doesn’t just automatically happen.

Once upon a time, Yahoo did this well; it combined the strengths of online delivery and content-based applications with the human factor to create an effective place to visit. And then it veered off direction, seemingly forgetting why it worked to begin with. If Shine is a statement that Yahoo’s direction is within its past, then that is a good statement regardless of how, err, familiar this implementation feels. But the quotes don’t give me the warm and fuzzies about this.

“We’re executing on Yahoo’s starting point strategy by ensuring that women who start their day with Yahoo are offered a more relevant experience,” said Yahoo Media senior vice president Scott Moore in that same aforementioned release.

Say what, Scott? Staring Point Strategy? Pasta vs. Pushups as a more relevant experience for starting my day? Or maybe this is just another way of saying that Microsoft is going to be your best friend.