Yahoo's new algorithm can spot online abuse in both context and content

There’s a lot of trash on the internet, and while humans may not have the emotional capacity to comb through it all, a new algorithm from Yahoo does. That’s right — spotting online abuse just got a lot easier, and it’s all thanks a “machine learning-based method to detect hate speech on online user comments.” Promising to “outperform a state-of-the-art deep learning approach,” this new algorithm has the capacity to spot abusive messages with around a 90 percent accuracy rate.

How did they do it? It began with a novel data set Yahoo built itself, composed completely of hateful or otherwise offensive article comments previously noted by Yahoo editors (yes, human beings).

Then, the team applied a process known as “word embedding,” which allowed them to examine words in strings. That means that even if a single word isn’t inherently offensive, the algorithm is able to determine whether the phrase comprising those words is ultimately hurtful. This differs from most other systems available, which are generally on the lookout for keywords, but may miss more sophisticated sorts of hate speech or abusive content.

“Automatically identifying abuse is surprisingly difficult,” researcher Alex Krasodomski-Jones of the U.K.-based Centre for Analysis of Social Media told the MIT Technology Review. “The language of abuse is amorphous — changing frequently and often used in ways that do not connote abuse, such as when racially or sexually charged terms are appropriated by the groups they once denigrated.”

He continued, “Given 10 tweets, a group of humans will rarely all agree on which ones should be classed as abusive, so you can imagine how difficult it would be for a computer.”
Still, having a machine’s assistance in the process seems like a helpful step moving forward, especially given the sheer volume of content now available on the web.



Source: Digital Trends

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Tech Giants That Fell From Grace

In the fast-moving, ever-changing world of technology, life on top doesn’t last forever. At WIRED, we like to see the people building truly innovative technology succeed. It’s sad to see once-mighty Internet titans fail to keep up with the times, and it’s maddening to learn that the technologists we believed in have been hiding something all along.

Here, for your year-end schadenfreude or genuine pity, are 2015’s top scandals, flameouts, missteps, and struggles. Not all of these companies can be blamed for the fate that befell them (though, some of them most definitely can—we’re looking at you VW), and most of them stand a chance of rebounding in 2016, if they haven’t already. All of them, however, serve as cautionary tales for the rest of the industry.

1. Volkswagen Duped Us All

Volkswagen is still reeling from the revelation that it used software on its supposedly “clean” diesel vehicles to evade emissions standards in the US. The discovery compelled federal regulators to order Volkswagen to recall a half-million vehicles. Shortly afterward, Volkswagen admitted 11 million vehicles were implicated worldwide.

Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn stepped down, but the company faces tens of billions of dollars in fines from the US government and countries around the world, not to mention lawsuits from duped car owners. Still, despite the depth of the company’s deception, Volkswagen’s stock price is already showing signs of a rebound.

2. Ashley Madison’s Outed Cheaters

When the dating site for men (and supposedly women) who want to cheat was hacked, exposing some 30 gigabytes of customer and company information, the news shook not only the tech industry but politics and entertainment, too. Reality stars and politicians were among those implicated in the scandal. The fallout ruined lives and, according to the Toronto police, resulted in two outed users committing suicide. Somehow, though, the service saw a bump in usage after the hack was revealed.

3. Theranos Was Exposed

People hailed Theranos as tech’s Next Big Thing long before seeing real evidence supporting the blood-testing company’s claims. That had a lot to do with the persuasive power of its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, who began working on Theranos’ diagnostic technology while she was still in college and was often compared to the late Steve Jobs. But when a meaty exposé in The Wall Street Journal alleged that Theranos exaggerated the capabilities of its blood tests and worked hard to cover up the shortcomings, the med-tech startup appeared to possess more sparkle than substance.

Theranos has denied many of The Journal’s allegations. Nonetheless, the controversy revealed how the Silicon Valley hype cycle can spin wildly out of control.

5. Yahoo Came Undone

We saw this one coming a mile away. Ever since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO of the once dominant Internet giant, she’s struggled in vain to right the rusty old ship, even as shinier, speedier vessels like Google and Facebook left Yahoo bobbing in their wakes.

It was clear for some time that Mayer would have to make a big decision about the future of the company, and this month, that decision came when Mayer announced Yahoo would spin off its core Internet business and keep its stake in the Chinese giant, Alibaba. Of course, Yahoo’s Internet business is for all intents its entire business, meaning the spinoff is quite valuable and may fare better on its own. Still, the move had a kind of “desperate times call for desperate measures” feel to it.
5. Reddit Revolted

This was the year that Reddit, the self-described “front page if the Internet,” went dark. Why? The brass fired a popular Reddit employee, inspiring many moderators to protest by making nearly 300 subreddits private. Then-CEO Ellen Pao tried to apologize for the company’s lack of communication but was viciously shouted down by Reddit’s vast army of trolls, driving her to announce her resignation days later.

Reddit’s original co-founder, Steve Huffman soon returned as CEO and started making changes intended to make the Reddit community a little less mean. Reddit is bouncing back, but whether Huffman can ever rid Reddit of the ugliness that almost led to its demise still remains to be seen.

6. The World Was Too Cruel for Secret

Back in early 2014 the tech world couldn’t get enough of Secret, the anonymous social networking app that quickly became a hotbed of industry gossip. But by the end of the year, faced by competitors like Whisper and Yik Yak, it seemed Secret was going through something of an identity crisis. In 2015, it took its last breath when founder David Byttow announced that the startup, which had raised $35 million in funding, was shutting down.

His rationale was that anonymity online is “the ultimate double-edged sword, which must be wielded with great respect and care.” In other words, when social networks are anonymous, people are jerks. We might just be better off without yet another tool for trolling each other.

7. Homejoy Closed Up Shop

In 2015, the on-demand economy got hit hard by worker classification lawsuits arguing that the drivers, cleaners, and personal shoppers that keep all those companies running ought to be classified as employees, not independent contractors. Homejoy, an on-demand cleaning service startup, was among those sued. Unlike richer contemporaries like Uber, Homejoy couldn’t handle the potential liability and shut down in July.

The company’s failure also revealed the challenges on-demand startups face when they try to force growth. In order to expand its customer base, Homejoy offered its services to first-time customers at dirt-cheap prices, making it next to impossible to retain those customers later on.

8. GE Couldn’t Save Quirky

It wasn’t long ago that General Electric was celebrating Quirky as the future of manufacturing. The company helped inventors get access to the design and manufacturing capabilities needed to make their inventions a reality, and raised $185 million, including from GE, which partnered with Quirky on a new line of products. Now, GE regrets that move.

This year, Quirky filed for bankruptcy, revealing just how difficult it is to run what was effectively a manufacturing company as a tech company. GE, for its part, was none too pleased, accusing Quirky of damaging GE’s reputation by failing to keep up with customer service contracts for existing products.

9. Gawker Lost Its Way—And Its Staff

We’re still not sure what to make of Gawker’s roller coaster of a year. It started off on a high, setting of a trend of unionization within the digital media industry. But the web giant soon plunged into disarray after publishing a controversial story that outed another media executive.

Gawker pulled the story, but the internal strife it created drove several top Gawker editors to leave the company. Founder Nick Denton vowed that Gawker would do some “soul searching,” and come out of it “20 percent nicer.” Now, Denton plans to transition the gossip site into a political site.

10. Twitter Took a Nosedive

It’s been a bittersweet year for Twitter. On the one hand, 2015 saw the return of Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, as its new CEO, as well as the debut of Moments, a new feature that’s turning out to be a pretty useful way of navigating Twitter’s firehose of information. On the other hand, Dorsey’s return was accompanied by a big round of layoffs. Before that, Twitter was awash in criticism over former CEO Dick Costolo’s failure to produce the user growth that other competitors like Facebook have enjoyed.

In August, Twitter shares dropped below their IPO price, a response to its second quarter earnings report. All the while, the company has struggled to contain the rampant and dangerous abuse that takes place on the platform. We’re not counting Twitter out yet, but Dorsey certainly has a busy year ahead of him in 2016.


Source :Wired

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Goodbye, Dubai: Yahoo to Shutter Final Office in Mideast

Yahoo is shuttering its entire operation in the Mideast, with plans to close its final 50-person office in Dubai.

Yahoo also confirmed the move to Gulf Business in a typical we’re-so-sorry statement, noting the office would shut down by April. This came after the Silicon Valley Internet giant had said it would keep the office open after previous layoffs last year.

The sad end to its foray in the region was after the company bought Arabic social network Maktoob.com for close to $170 million in 2009, with great hopes of expansion there. At one point, Yahoo had 400 employees in the area.

Under the now troubled leadership of Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has pulled back internationally. It also lost its well-regarded international head Dawn Airey earlier this year.


Source : Recode

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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announces she's given birth to twin girls

The Yahoo CEO announced on Thursday that she has given birth to identical twin girls."Zack and I are excited to announce that our identical twin girls were born early this morning," Mayer wrote on Twitter, referring to her husband, Zachary Bogue. "Our whole family is doing great!"

The announcement comes a day after Yahoo said it would spin off it] s core Internet advertising and products business, instead of going forward with a plan to spin off its stake in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, worth around $30 billion.

Mayer said she didn’t plan to take a long maternity leave. Her approach to the pregnancy and delivery will be “taking limited time away and working throughout,” she said in September.

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Once Upon a Time, Yahoo Was the Most Important Internet Company

Silicon Valley is full of giants. But one seems to be slowly disappearing. Yahoo was once an Internet titan, a ruler of the web. Now its future appears to be in question.

Investors worry about what will happen to Yahooonce it spins off its stake in Chinese behemoth Alibaba—or if it can’t. Meanwhile, among consumers, Yahoo has an identity problem—what, exactly, does Yahoo do?

These questions have come to a head again over the past week or so as activist shareholders called for Yahoo to sell its Internet business. High profile chief executive Marissa Mayer’s future is beingcalled into question. A wave of executives have left the company in recent months. And even something Yahoo does right—its popular fantasy sports site—is facing scrutiny from New York’s attorney general. It’s been a long slide for one of the web’s oldest businesses—so long that it can be easy to forget that Yahoo once ruled the Internet.

Yahoo was once a trailblazer: it was here before Facebook and Google. It was here before we texted, tweeted, or snapped. Its place in the history of the Internet is in some ways singular: It was for many the first way they experienced the web.

At WIRED, we’ve tracked the ups and downs of the web since its earliest days. In the process, we’ve traced the growth and decline of Yahoo itself—the rise and decline of an Internet original.

Taming the Chaos

Launched in 1994 by Stanford grads Jerry Yang and David Filo as “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” it soon became one of the most popular sites on the web. Initially a hand-built hierarchical directory of websites organized by category, the site by 1996 had been renamed Yahoo! (with its trademark exclamation point) and its stock soared as it went public. Yahoo! indeed.

In 1996, WIRED editor Steve Steinberg visited Yahoo’s offices to take a look at how exactly it all worked. The company, he wrote, was attempting to “exert some kind of order on an otherwise anarchic collection of documents.” To pull this off, the company collected new URLs—aka web addresses—via a web crawler as well as email tips from users. Twenty human classifiers would decide in what categories each site belonged. That dependence on “human intelligence to organize the web” had its pitfalls, namely subjectivity and scalability. And yet, at the time, “in almost every way you can measure, Yahoo has successfully exerted order on the chaotic Web,” Steinberg wrote.

In the late ’90s, Yahoo had expanded far beyond its roots—it launched an email service, chat, groups, games, and a website platform. (Remember GeoCities?) It also tried to assert itself as a search engine. But search was where the company started to founder. In 2000, the company signed a deal with Google to license the upstart’s search system. “Yahoo was riding high, and upstart Google was hoping to be the next Yahoo,” contributing editor Michael Malone wrote in 2005″ target=”_blank”>wrote in 2005, as he looked back at the company in 2000.

“But then came the dotcom implosion, with Yahoo firing hundreds of employees and seeing its stock price drop from $119 to $4. Now, even though Yahoo’s back, it seems consigned to Google’s shadow.”

Identity Crisis

While Google focused on search, Yahoo sought to grow into a full-fledged media company under CEO Terry Semel, a Hollywood veteran, in the mid-2000s. Following the dotcom bust, Yahoo had acquired its own search company, Inktomi. But by then, its focus had shifted as Google became the clear leader in search.

By 2005, still under Semel’s leadership, the company had spun up an entertainment divisionin Los Angeles to add movies and music services to Yahoo’s portfolio alongside its games, news, sports, and financial information resources.

“Semel imagines Yahoo delivering rich content to any Web-enabled device at any time, a vision that could make Yahoo the obvious next step in Hollywood’s Internet strategy,” Malone wrote in 2005. But even then, a decade ago, Yahoo itself had become a company whose mission was tough to define. Malone explained, “it’s just not easy to say what Yahoo is.”

The late aughts were messy for Yahoo—there were even talks of a merger with Microsoft. By 2007, WIRED contributing editor Fred Vogelstein was willing to proclaim that Yahoo “blew it.” Google beat Yahoo at the search engine game. Meanwhile, as Yahoo tried to become a media company, Google had bought YouTube. “Yahoo’s much-watched effort to create an entertainment unit in Hollywood fizzled,” Vogelstein wrote that year. “Worst of all, Yahoo’s long-delayed push to aggressively compete in the search-driven advertising business is only now getting off the ground.”

Turn Around

The company continued to flounder as Google and Facebook encroached on its ad business. In 2012, Marissa Mayer, a successful Google exec, left the company that once had been on Yahoo’s heels to try to help turn one of the web’s oldest giants around.

Despite her efforts, Yahoo hasn’t regained its footing—and, some say, may never find its way. “More than two years after taking the job, Mayer has yet to restore the company’s core business to growth,” WIRED senior staff writer Jessi Hempelwrote last year. “Advertisers and investors alike complain she hasn’t articulated enough of a vision for how she plans to do it.”

Yahoo was once a trailblazer. It was a titan. It was right, actually, about the future of the web. The Internet has become a catalog containing the breadth of human knowledge and information. But you probably use Google to find it. Hollywoodhas had to contend with the Internet. But you probably watch Netflix. We do use the Internet to communicate—mainly via social networks and chat platforms like Facebook. And ads? Yeah, the Internet runs on ads. But in every category that really matters, Yahoo has been eclipsed. As revolutionary as it once was, it’s unclear if we need Yahoo anymore.

Source :Wired 

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Yahoo will now Google your search queries

In its third-quarter earnings report, Yahoo said that it will begin showing search results from Google, alongside others from Microsoft’s Bing as well as its own engine.

The company noted that it’s entered into a three-year, non-exclusive agreement with Google to display results to mobile and desktop audiences across the globe, and retains the right to choose which search queries to pass to Google.

The regulatory filing on the agreement reads:

Under the Services Agreement, Yahoo has discretion to select which search queries to send to Google and is not obligated to send any minimum number of search queries. The Services Agreement is non-exclusive and expressly permits Yahoo to use any other search advertising services, including its own service, the services of Microsoft Corporation or other third parties.

On the surface, it seems like a curious move for a major search provider. However, the deal gives Yahoo the flexibility to choose which Google ads and results it wants to display and gives the company a chance to earn more revenue from search without having to try and match its new partner in technology and infrastructure.

Yahoo will continue to serve ads from Bing — itsigned up to do so back in 2010 and has sinceloosened its arrangement with Microsoft to allow either party to quit the deal with four months’ notice.

According to ComScore, Yahoo ranks third in the search space in the US with its 12.6 percent share of the market. It trails behind Google (roughly 64 percent) and Microsoft (20.7 percent).

Source :The next Web 

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Yahoo wants to kill passwords with revamped Mail app

Yahoo thinks it can make your password a thing of the past.

It's part of a larger effort to revamp the Internet giant's email service into something so compelling and easy to use that it stands out among other email services like Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Outlook. In Silicon Valley at least, Gmail is considered cool, and most others are passe. Yahoo hopes new features it announced Thursday will help change that.

One of the features enables people to log in to their email accounts without a password. You go to mail.yahoo.com, enter your user name and press "continue." That's where everything changes. Instead of entering an annoyingly complex or easy-to-crack password, the company sends an alert to your smartphone and asks if you'd like to sign in. Hit "yes," and presto.

"We're going to kill passwords altogether," Dylan Casey, Yahoo's vice president of product management, said at a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday.

If Yahoo's tech catches on, it means consumers could eventually live in a world without having to remember passwords. That's a big deal because most security experts agree passwords in general are unsafe. What's more, it doesn't even matter if you are logging into a secure website.

High-profile hacks at places including Sony Pictures, the Internal Revenue Service and extramarital-dating website Ashley Madison have brought a lot of attention to people's digital vulnerability. One of the problems is too many people use an easy-to-guess password or the same one for multiple sites. The result is that if a hacker breaks into one site, it could mean trouble for the rest of your online life.

A 'far superior' way

This isn't Yahoo's first push to end passwords. The company in March released a feature called On-Demand passwords, which lets people sign into their Yahoo accounts with temporary passwords the company texts to users' phones. It's Yahoo's take on a common process for logging into websites called two-factor authentication, where you first enter your own password, then enter a second password the company sends to your phone. Many popular services, including Gmail, do this. Think of Yahoo's process as two-factor authentication, minus the first factor.

But only 3 percent or 4 percent of Yahoo's 225 million monthly active users implemented On-Demand passwords, Casey said. Yahoo's new tool, called Account Key, is "far superior," to On-Demand passwords, said Jeff Bonforte, senior vice president of communication products. He said Yahoo will eventually shut down On-Demand passwords and move people to the new feature.

To use the tool, you log in to your email with your regular password, turn on Account Key, and register your phone. The catch, of course, is you must own a smartphone and be willing to give your phone number to Yahoo. Bonforte said more than 90 percent of Yahoo Mail users in the US have smartphones, and the majority of users access their mail through their phones.

If people lose their phones or their battery dies, they can still log in using traditional passwords or through email. The tool is available for Yahoo Mail and Sports but will expand to the company's other services later, a company spokesman said.

A wider reach

For Yahoo, attracting more people to its email service is critical as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to turn the company around. Since she took the helm of the once-proud Internet pioneer three years ago, she's tried to pull the company into the era of smartphones and tablets. She's revamped each of the company's mobile properties, from Yahoo Weather to Finance, but she still faces flagging revenue and increasing impatience from investors.

"Basically, what they need is a killer product. They need something," said Sameet Sinha, an analyst with the investment bank B. Riley and Co. "Google has search. What does Yahoo have?"

Yahoo hopes the new version of Mail can fill that void. The company also announced other new features for the service, including allowing people to import outside email accounts such as Outlook.com, AOL and Hotmail. Gmail is not included, though the company is "working on it," Bonforte said. You can also look at attachments side by side with messages, among other things.

The company said it made its email search tool more powerful so you can more easily see older emails while on the service's mobile app. The iPhone version of the app will be compatible with 3D Touch, a new software feature Apple designed for the new iPhone 6S that lets people navigate through apps differently.

The changes are an attempt to improve a crucial part of Yahoo's business, Bonforte said. "Yahoo Mail has always been the center of what Yahoo is," he said. "The success of the product is very important to the success of the company."

Source :CNET 

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Yahoo's Beta Version Mail App Gets Material Design Refresh

Yahoo Mail's beta version app has received quite a little update recently as the Yahoo development team brings material design visual improvements to the UI. Currently the changes can only be seen in the beta version so for those who are still using the normal app that can be downloaded from the Play Store, everything looks as it did before the visual refresh came to the beta. When users get their hands on this version of the app or when Yahoo decides things are finally ready for primetime and pushes the changes to the main app, the first thing users will likely notice is the complete visual overhaul with material design.

Looking at how the UI design is set up now, it's quite possible that Yahoo still has some finishing touches to put on the app before it sends things out to users. The header bar up top is deep and full of color just like other material apps, and the hamburger menu now evokes more of a material design style, one part seems a little out of place though; the floating action button. While the presence of the floating action button itself is nice to see finally making its way to the official Yahoo mail app, one need only look at the screenshots below to realize that it seems to be a tiny bit out of shape. The floating action button should be round but as shown in the images it doesn't appear that way. Having said that this does appear to be something Yahoo implemented intentionally as the FAB matches the shapes of the contact icons in the mail list.

Another stark change is the bold use of the gradient style color scheme throughout the application. Most other material design apps would be opting for 2 or 3 solid colors layered throughout the UI, perhaps with the header and the FAB matching each other or with the FAB matching accent colors in the hamburger menu. Instead, Yahoo has gone with a full use of gradient including dark and light purple hues across the entire application from the main screen to the settings menu. The overall design of the app looks nice, and users will surely get accustomed to it if no changes are made, but things might look a little more in line with the material design guidelines if Yahoo changed up the FAB to match the solid dark purple color they're known for. It's also worth mentioning that this is Yahoo's beta version so they have some time to play with things, and you have to give them credit for striking out and trying something different.

Source : Android Headlines 

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Yahoo marketing chief leaves for entertainment studio

Yahoo said that marketing chief Kathy Savitt is leaving to take a job heading a digital team at television and film industry studio STX Entertainment.

Savitt played a high-level role in efforts by Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer's to revive the aging Internet pioneer and her departure could signal a larger shake-up taking place at the company.

"We can confirm that Kathy Savitt has decided to leave the company," a Yahoo spokesperson said in reply to an AFP inquiry.

"We appreciate her contributions to Yahoo over the past three years and wish her well."

Yahoo declined further comment.

Savitt will start next month as president of a digital team at STX and be responsible for "helping the studio fulfill its ambition of becoming a true creative haven for the world's top entertainment talent," the company said in a release.

STX was established early last year and described itself as "a fully-integrated motion picture, television, and digital content studio."

"Viewers are in control and each film or show has to earn its space in their time on its own merit," Savitt said in a release.

"What we are doing at STX hasn't been done before; we are creating a new way for audiences to access meaningful stories, from wherever they are."

Source : phys.org 

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Sony to shut down its online store August 28

Sony announced via an email to its customers and a notice on its website that it will be shutting down its online store come August 28 at 1pm PST. If you were looking to buy a device straight from Sony, you'll need to act fast.

It's not clear as to why Sony is shutting down the online store, however, it could be entirely possible that its US store just isn't receiving enough customers. Sony did say that it will “soon unveil a new online product showcase and more ways to shop.” We're not entirely sure what it entails, but Sony could drop some hints during its scheduled announcement next week.

It's also not clear as to whether this just affects the US store or other regions as well.

Either way, if you've got store credit or gift cards lying around, now is the best time to go on a shopping spree!

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Yahoo acquires fashion commerce site Polyvore

Yahoo has sealed another ambitious acquisition deal. The company announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire Polyvore, a fashion-oriented e-commerce business founded in 2007. The announcement doesn't give a price for the deal, but the cost to Yahoo is likely to be substantial. Polyvore had raised $22 million in seed funding, with the most recent round closing in January of 2012.

"The combination of Yahoo’s industry-leading digital content with Polyvore’s expertise in community and commerce has outstanding potential," said Yahoo executive Simon Khalaf in a statement accompanying the annoucement. "We are thrilled to have the Polyvore team join us."

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has long been close with Jess Lee, the founder and CEO of Polyvore, beginning when Mayer recruited Lee to work at Google in the earlyYahoo just sealed another ambitious acquisition deal. The company announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire Polyvore, a fashion-oriented e-commerce business founded in 2007. The announcement doesn't give a price for the deal, but the cost to Yahoo is likely to be substantial. Polyvore had raised $22 million in seed funding, with the most recent round closing in January of 2012.

"The combination of Yahoo’s industry-leading digital content with Polyvore’s expertise in community and commerce has outstanding potential," said Yahoo executive Simon Khalaf in a statement accompanying the annoucement. "We are thrilled to have the Polyvore team join us."

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has long been close with Jess Lee, the founder and CEO of Polyvore, beginning when Mayer recruited Lee to work at Google in the early '00s. Polyvore has also collaborated closely with Yahoo Style, partnering for a number of subscriber-building competitions. The acquisition appears to be an extention of those partnerships, as Yahoo looks to Polyvore as a commerce partner for its editorial offerings. "Polyvore will strengthen Yahoo’s digital magazines and verticals through the incorporation of community and commerce," the official announcement reads, "and together Yahoo and Polyvore will power native shopping ads that drive traffic and sales to retailers." '00s. Polyvore has also collaborated closely with Yahoo Style, partnering for a number of subscriber-building competitions. The acquisition appears to be an extention of those partnerships, as Yahoo looks to Polyvore as a commerce partner for its editorial offerings. "Polyvore will strengthen Yahoo’s digital magazines and verticals through the incorporation of community and commerce," the official announcement reads, "and together Yahoo and Polyvore will power native shopping ads that drive traffic and sales to retailers."

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