Yahoo is re-branding its main app as Yahoo Newsroom

The new app referred to as Yahoo Newsroom will have a heavier focus on – you guessed it – news, with a bit of community-building twist.

The change is a follow up on a redesign to Yahoo’s homepage and app back in January. There’s an ‘Explore’ tab where you can select to follow topics they are now calling “Vibes.” Like pretty much everything else these days, the app uses machine learning to help determine the best stories to show you, and the more you read, the better your recommendations will be.

Perhaps the most interesting bit is that you can actually post your own article recommendations to individual Vibes. The Vibes essentially become their own communities where you can read, discuss, and debate topics with people who might share common interests (These vibes are like mini chat rooms for different topics).

That makes the Newsroom a bit more akin to the Facebook News Feed than your standard News aggregate, allowing users to shape the conversation around topics they care about, but hopefully with less of the haphazard and low quality content so prevalent on social media.

The update is rolling out today on iOS and Android. I wonder what users will be saying about Yahoo spying on you.