Yahoo's moves into original content

Two interesting articles this weekend on Yahoo's moves into the original content space.

The NY Times profiled the latest moves by Lloyd Braun, putting into place a number of initiatives to make Yahoo a competitive media player, not just an aggregator of others' content.  The first of these is the previously announced "Kevin Sites in the HotZone", a multimedia blog from Mr. Sites who will be Yahoo's foreign correspondent.  Also in the works, according to the Times, is a "Daily Show" - like humorous take on the news.  It's clear that Terry Semel's vision of Yahoo as a platform for original video content it moving forward.

At the same time, this morning's WSJ  reports that Yahoo Media Group and Yahoo Finance have hired some big names in the financial publishing market to pen columns for Yahoo.  Included in the list are Robert Kiyosaki, Stephen Covey and Ben Stein, among others, in an effort to attract more of the female 30-40 year-old demographic.

These latest moves bring into focus the divergence between Google and Yahoo. Google, run by technologists, continues to look to become the next computing platform, while Terry Semel's Yahoo is seeking the path to become the dominant next generation media company.