Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) is about to launch a site for women between 25 and 52 years old. It must think this group does not have enough to do on the internet. The assumption is a victory of hope over reason.

According to The Wall Street Journal the new site called Shine is "aimed largely at giving the Internet company additional opportunities to sell advertising targeted to the key decision-maker in many household." The same group is the target of the websites of virtually every women's magazine and web-only operation like NBC's iVillage.

Yahoo! is very late to the game. There is no reason that the big websites for brands from Vogue to Women's Day to Allure are going to lose any visitors to the new destination. The older brands have been in business for years and women only have to much time to spend on the internet.

The launch is an example of why Yahoo! has been relatively unsuccessful in recent years. It has become a follower and not a leader in categories from maps to news.

The new operation gives Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) on more part of Yahoo! to shut down if and when it buys the company.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The world's largest retailer has had a few missteps in 2007 trying to change its stores to cater to higher-income shoppers, with trendier clothes and organic foods being some of the product additions. The so-far failure of these lucrative consumers flocking to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is a testament to how strongly most of the U.S. sees Wal-Mart as a discount chain, not a purveyor of anything high-end. The reality is changing, of course, as the retailer adds higher-end goods (like nicer plasma flat-screen televisions), but getting past the image of "always low prices" is no small matter.

Perhaps Wal-Mart should try to sway the iVillage crowd? It's making a stab at that by introducing the new 'z.b.d. design' female clothing line that only appears on the retailer's website, but not in stores. Perhaps Wal-Mart marketing execs believe that the chain can sell trendier women's clothing if those customers can separate the "discount" image in regular stores from the apparent elegance its website possesses. I'm not sure customers can delineate between Wal-Mart Supercenters in their respective areas and www.walmart.com, but it never hurts to try, I guess. It is interesting to note that Wal-Mart's website is a bright spot for the company right now, as it is one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world.

It's not really a revelation that Wal-Mart's website strategy now includes the feature where customers can order online and pick up that merchandise at a local store later without paying any shipping charges. The retailer knows that once a customer plants a foot inside a physical store -- if only to pick up a web order -- he or she will probably shop some more, upping the "ticket" for that particular shopping trip. My guess is that Wal-Mart will use the same strategy to get female shoppers picking up these new clothing purchases at local stores after having ordered on the web.

GE ended the day at $33.45, up 15 cents. Of late the market has been getting ready for second quarter earnings, and some volatility is not surprising as GE bumps up and down as it gets closer to Friday, when earnings for GE's second quarter will be announced.

GE Healthcare announced recently a collaboration with TGen on cancer research, something that might provide some results while keeping initial research cost down.

More light on the social networking side of NBC's acquisitions are out now, with NBC moving a new executive over to iVillage. Is this in preparation for the rumored purchase of Tribe.net? Time will tell.

TechCrunch is reporting on rumors that NBC is working on buying the social networking site Tribe.net to power some of its online networking sites like iVillage. This sort of purchase would make sure social networking sites are a mainstream phenomenon, particularly if it was big money like NBC's behind them.

Why might NBC be snagging this particular group up? Valleywag thinks it is because NBC is trying to position itself as the opposite of the Fox network as it notices some are disillusioned by the strong partisanship platform of the network. Though if that is true, using a software purchase to increase grass roots infiltration of those who don't cotton to Fox might have the same exact kind of backlash from consumers who are getting even more cynical about media from large institutions. The popularity of social networking and grassroots sites like Tribe.net is to make an end run around large organizations. Will places like NBC be able to co-opt that?

With enough money, probably.