Yahoo has thrown its hat into the ring when it comes to offering an authoritative source on all things digital publishing, launching "The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World.”
To an extent, the guide is an alternative to the AP Stylebook, which has long-defined the grammar, punctuation and style of editors –- both online and off. In that area, some of Yahoo’s guidelines might be seen as more progressive, perhaps most notably with “email” losing the hyphen (AP Stylebook still has it as “e-mail” although it recently changed “Web site” to “website” –- a much applauded move) and “smartphone” as one word (the AP has it as two).
Beyond the style issues, however, Yahoo’s guide offers lots of practical advice for writing for the web, with articles about issues like how to appeal to an online audience, making your site accessible to those with disabilities, search engine optimization, creating content for mobile devices and what makes a strong headline. In addition to the online guide, Yahoo will release a print version as well as Kindle and iPad apps on July 6.