Yahoo has announced and it’s reported by Marketing Vox that Yahoo is going to produce its own answer to social media and the market place by creating what has been deemed Yahoo’s "Brand Universes".  Marketing Vox reports:

Criticized for missing the social media explosion, Yahoo plans to leverage its social properties, such as Flickr and Del.icio.us, on behalf of advertisers in the hopes of partnering with "passion brands" to generate more ad revenue.

In the coming months, Yahoo will begin rolling out the first set of what it calls "brand universes" - dedicated areas on Yahoo for fans of a movie or product to congregate, share and connect with each other, reports Adweek. Unlike the brand areas on MySpace and YouTube, Yahoo is not asking marketers for ad dollars to build the sites. Instead, it itself has identified a batch of 100 "passion brands" to build dedicated areas for.

This seems like a logical step given the number of niche blogging networks popping up all over the blogosphere.  I have predicted before that a new advertising medium with blogs will be leveraging categories of blogs for specific advertisers.  Be it a category or in their term "universes" with the likes of blogging parents, health bloggers, and in their launch, gaming bloggers, it’s time for targeted advertising in Yahoo’s plans.

Tags: Yahoo, Branding Universes, Marketing Vox, blog networks