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Comment by mikeleeorg | Hacker News Reader

Just an FYI: two of Yahoo's stronger properties are Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance, both of whom haven't historically had a large female audience. The other properties that might attract a female audience haven't done as well.

That's not to say Yahoo can't sell these and purchase the properties Dave mentions, of course. It's just that Yahoo currently doesn't have a core strength in targeting women and would need to reach out a lot to build that competency.

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I remember when I interned at Yahoo! several years ago, Yahoo! Shine, their women's lifestyle portal, had a fairly large audience. According to Alexa, it's still one of their larger web properties:

  mail.yahoo.com 48.76%
  login.yahoo.com 29.14%
  yahoo.com 24.39%
  search.yahoo.com 19.22%
  answers.yahoo.com 16.42%
  news.yahoo.com 15.16%
  sports.yahoo.com 6.35%
  finance.yahoo.com 6.25%
  omg.yahoo.com 5.86%
  my.yahoo.com 4.71%
  in.yahoo.com 4.67%
  tw.yahoo.com 3.39%
  docs.yahoo.com 2.78%
  movies.yahoo.com 2.75%
  shine.yahoo.com 2.59%

just went there now and were visually raped by a huge background-ad by Disney and Verizon. Don't recall seeing those for a while now; thought horizontal background ads were a thing of a past. Learnt something new today, but definitely won't go back there in next couple years.

Please don't use the word "raped" in that context--as there are some people on here for whom that word conjures up a much worse image.

I hate the shitheads here who down voted you for pointing that out.

I am one of those. Let me tell you why: shitty attitude like this helps no one. What kind of stupid censorship is this? I hate every move towards "thought-crime" and I will downvote either on HN or in real voting anything what tries to bring us closer to this orvelian world. People may be upset by the metaphorical use of the word "rape"? How about the litteral use then? Should we just censor it out? What if someone was raped on the table, should we no longer mention database tables? And the last one: who are you anyway and who has entitled you to decide and advice others what words to use? Usually the ones on this kind of moral high grounds are the most harmful.

"Offense is taken, not give". However sad someone's experience may be this is not a good excuse to censor the expression of others. And not very effective at that.

"Thought crime"! Thought crime my arse. This stuff is just simple good manners. Behaviour designed to put others at ease.

Thought crime! God's teeth. Were you dragged up?

Very simply, there is a significant difference between someone's body being violated in possibly the worst way possible, in a way that can destroy someone's life, and being subjected to advertising or losing a video game.

It trivializes someone's tramautic experience, and reminds them how others see it as No Big Deal.

I am completely about freedom of speech, but I reserve my right to condemn those who use certain types of speech.

What is wrong with a little bit of courtesy?

- Victims of murder, kidnapping, torture could all claim similar boycotts for those terms.

- PETA might say just hearing the word "slaughter" brings them to tears.

- religious groups are offended by all kinds of things. (eg. homosexuality)

No one can claim a monopoly on being offended. Part of living in our modern multicultural society is that you grow a shell towards these things. Your problem with these words should not impede the freedom of those around you.

Rape in and of itself is a terrible crime. Yet the word is just that, a word, and your personal offence is not unique. I get offended too, everyone does. Just to different things.

Can you imagine the bland and chaste world we might live in if every complaint for personal offense on the radio, tv or internet was taken into account.

Lambler, this is an answer I should have written so thank you for that. I upvoted.

It kind of surprised me, given this is an internet and HN is not a religious or kids website, to see her getting offended by me using this word especially in this unregular context. I guess I have seen worst language flying around and never thought someone can get offended. Maybe shes very sensitive. I know for sure, living in NYC, cannot be too sensitive and been working with some women cursing very hard. I dont like it but I tend to ignore it.

This also reminds me, btw, about my friends Asian immigrant girlfriend. Supposedly their culture forbids heavy language. They were dating for 11 months when he used the word "crazy" to describe something that happened to him at work. She broke up with him the same day explaining she doesnt date americans who curse.

http://omg.yahoo.com is the more relevant "portal" from that list, and http://answers.yahoo.com is the kind of demographic very few of us HN users rub shoulders with.

Just for curiosity's sake, I looked up Quantcast's demographic metrics on Yahoo! Answers:

http://www.quantcast.com/answers.yahoo.com#!demo&anchor=...

Female: 53%

Male: 47%

And interestingly, Yahoo.com's demographics are:

http://www.quantcast.com/yahoo.com#!demo&anchor=panel-GE...

Female: 52%

Male: 48%

Whereas Google is:

http://www.quantcast.com/google.com#!demo&anchor=panel-G...

Female: 50%

Male: 50%

Looks like Yahoo does indeed have a slight skew towards a female audience. Dave may be on to something.

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