Seems 2007 is going to be the year of niched portals and vertical search.
Microsoft is buying Medstory, a health information search engine, and furthering their move into niched portals and vertical search. In China they have started development on a job search engine.
Yahoo is doing the same thing: business search in China, community portals covering specific audiences like Pontiac owners, investors and health sites.
Yahoo seems to be using the portal, community model with search ads as part of the monetization. Though they are trying to develop a business search engine as their primary perspective for the Chinese market.
Yahoo has created entertainment community pages for the Oscars; car fan sites using the manufacturers as support and advertiser.
This seems to be a repeating theme in the two months so far of 2007. Let’s see where this all ends up.