Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) scored a bit of a coup yesterday when it announced that wildly popular tech journalist David Pogue would be joining the company in the next few weeks. Pogue has for some time claimed the position of most widely-read columnist for The New York Times. Pogue will lead a “major expansion” of Yahoo’s tech coverage on a new website starting later this year, the company said.
Plans for Yahoo’s readership
While Marissa Mayer briefly forgot about America Online and allowed the company to build its readership, especially after the acquisition of the Huffington Post, she is now back on point and looking to build on Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s readership of over 800 million each month. There is a touch of irony in luring Pogue to a company that he has occasionally bashed in his 13 years of writing for the Times.
“This is a company that’s young, revitalized, aggressive — and, under Marissa Mayer’s leadership, razor-focused, for the first time in years,” Pogue wrote on Tumblr, the blog site that Yahoo bought in May.
David Pogue’s career
Pogue had been writing a column in the Times each Thursday since 2000 where he examined consumer electronics and gadgets in an approachable and often humorous fashion. In addition to a wide readership, Pogue’s reviews, preferably a positive one, are highly sought after by tech companies.
In addition to publishing columns, blog posts and videos, he also has plans “for all kinds of online and real-world creations.”
Pogue will continue his work as a a columnist at Scientific American, and a correspondent on both CBS and PBS.
Pogue’s interview with Forbes
In an email interview with Forbes, Pogue explained the reasons for his departure from the Times where he had expected to spend the rest of his career.
My new boss, Robertson Barrett, told me: “We want to be your playground.” That phrase is catnip to a creative type like me! I’ve got a list of cool ideas so long, you’d get tired just reading it. The point is that we can do things online, on phones, on tablets, on TV, and in person that nobody in consumer tech has tried yet. All of a sudden, all things are possible.
While Pogue will certainly be missed by the Times, his fans will certainly be looking forward to his work on a new, more interactive, platform.
