Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) Nov. 2 moved to prove it is the premier digital media company with applications that let users consume magazine content and television in Apple’s popular iPads.
Available free now from Apple’s App Store in the United States, Livestand incorporates content from its own Sports, News, Finance, Flickr, omg!, and the Yahoo Contributor Network properties, as well as from more than 100 publishers, such as Forbes, ABC News and Bonnier.
Livestand content, which will be organized into arts and culture, business and finance, sports and technology, will be personalized based on users’ interests. One of the key publications for Livestand is Yahoo Today, which the company loads with daily updates, including weather, stocks, entertainment news, sports, and TV listings.
Yahoo hopes its so-called “living ads,” which include animation, interaction and analytics, will boost the company’s bottom line when paired with the content. Livestand advertisers include Toyota and DreamWorks Pictures.
Toyota is running a Living Ad along with a rich media unit to promote the new Prius v car. DreamWorks Pictures, meanwhile, is promoting its “War Horse” film, which set for release Christmas day this year, on Livestand.
Livestand, which the company began talking about in February, was unveiled at Yahoo’s annual Project Runway event at its Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters.
The apps, which will compete with Flipboard and a forthcoming app from Google, code-named Propeller, is one of the company’s bids to be more relevant on mobile devices.
The iPad has shipped more than 32 million units worldwide since its launch in April 2010 and is easily the most popular mobile device on which users can consume magazine and other live media content, such as TV shows and films.
To wit, Yahoo Chief Product Office Blake Irving also showed off the company’s new IntoNow app for the iPad during the event.
Yahoo in April acquired IntoNow, which identifies live or recorded TV shows users are watching based on their sound and lets show watchers alert friends about it on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
IntoNow, which has indexed more than five years of U.S. TV programming, is also a recommendation engine of sorts, suggesting related content to the viewer. Like Livestand, IntoNow is available for the iPad free in the United States from Apple’s App Store.
The new apps come more than a month after Yahoo’s board fired CEO Carol Bartz, replacing her after 30 months of largely ineffectual leadership with CFO Tim Morse. The company is searching for a new CEO and considering other strategic options with private equity firms.