Yahoo sign a deal with Newspapers

Yahoo have signed a newspaper content and advertising deal with 7 US newspaper groups, totalling 176 regional newspapers. The newspaper groups included in the deal are Cox Newspapers Inc, E.W.Scripps Co and MediaNews Group Inc as report by Yahoo. The deal primarily involves the partnership of jobs adverts. Yahoo's HotJobs Classified Jobs will be supplying the newspapers online section with content as from December 2006, whilst the newspapers will be selling their jobs adverts on Yahoo's HotJobs. With Monster taking more and more of the jobs market, this will be a big hit back from the web giant Yahoo.

Profits dwindle

This move by Yahoo could not have been more timely. With Yahoo's shares dropping nearly 40% in October, the company has obviously been losing the online battle with competitors like Google. More than 500 million people visit Yahoo's web network each month and this will certainly help them to capture more of the market. Whilst the deal looks primarily at Jobs advertising, the potential for providing content both for Yahoo and the Newspapers is huge. Content such as news, advertising and search could then be provided by Yahoo to these newspapers as part of the deal.

Local Advertising

Analysts have recently criticised Yahoo's lack of innovation and this shows with the fall in shares. Although one area that Yahoo has not performed in recently is local search. This newspaper deal will certainly boost the local search mechanism for Yahoo and will drive more people to the web services that Yahoo provide.

Google take the lead

Whilst the newspaper deal by Yahoo looks like a great move by Yahoo, Google announced in November that it was to sell advertising space in print editions of 50 US newspapers including The New York Times. Whilst this is different to Yahoo's initial deal, Yahoo could end up selling advertising space in print editions too.