New York Times columnist David Pogue trades Gray Lady for Yahoo

Yahoo Inc has hired New York Times columnist David Pogue to oversee an expansion of the company's consumer technology website, the latest such voice to leave a newspaper.

Pogue said on his personal blog on Monday that the decision to leave the New York Times Co after more than a decade-long stint at the newspaper was not an easy one.

"But 13 years is a long time to stay in one place; we all thrive on new experiences," Pogue wrote. "So I was intrigued when Yahoo invited me to help build a new consumer-tech site."

Pogue acknowledged that Yahoo, once one of the world's most talked-about Internet companies, had received its share of knocks as it tried to burnish its brand. But he thinks that under Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has become "revitalized" and "razor-focused."

Meanwhile, newspapers continue to suffer from advertisers' flight to digital properties.

Pogue's exit coincides with the departure of longtime Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg, who is leaving the paper at the end of the year after the venture he co-founded, All Things D, severed its ties with Journal parent Dow Jones & Co., a unit of News Corp.

Yahoo's stock price, which was up 1.8 per cent at $34.04 on Monday, has more than doubled since Mayer became CEO in July 2012.

For the same period, New York Times shares are up roughly 80 per cent. They fell 0.6 per cent to $13.40 on Monday.

Mayer wrote on her Tumblr blog that Pogue had always been one of her favourite journalists. She said he would publish columns, blog posts and video stories that "demystify the gadgets, apps and technology that powers our users' daily lives."

Yahoo has tried to become a hub for consumer technology information before. In 2005, it hired the editor-in-chief of computer reviews website CNET to launch Yahoo Tech, a splashy website featuring original articles and videos about PCs and gadgets aimed at "mainstream" consumers. It shut down the venture in 2010.