Yahoo!7 Deals To Lure Extra Users
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday March 27, 2008
YAHOO!7 has flagged it will add 1.5 million new online users to its base and double its top-tier advertising inventory by year's end as it moves to sign up more premium content partners such as the recent deal with Disney and last November's alliance with Bebo in Australia.
The portal will unveil another five major content and advertising representation alliances in coming months as the company moves quickly to adapt the US strategy of Yahoo!-owned BlueLithium, which is focused on deals with North America's top 100 online content publishers. Nielsen//NetRatings figures for February show Google maintained its top audience ranking in Australia with 9.3 million unique users for the month, ahead of ninemsn on 7.9 million, Yahoo!7 with 5 million, News Digital Media with 3.7 million, Fairfax Digital with 3.4 million, YouTube 3.4 million, Sensis 3.2 million and Fox Interactive with 3.03 million (MySpace, IGN gaming). Yahoo!7 played down any likely changes this year to its deal with Bebo after AOL acquired the booming social media website for $US850 million ($927.29 million) this month. Bebo has about 40 million members worldwide.Yahoo!7's head of strategic partnerships, Markus Barnikel, confirmed another five content and advertising representation alliances were on the table but would not reveal details.He said the portal was making inroads against rivals trying to build bigger online advertising sales networks because it offered an "open platform" in which premium partner content was incorporated into the Yahoo!7 site as well as offering applications such as Messenger, Mail and Search to its partners. Yahoo!7's applications could either be Yahoo! branded or a "white label" service in which partners could rebrand some of the user applications. Mr Barnikel cited an example in which Yahoo!7 will soon launch a Disney zone on its portal at the same time as Disney will start using some of Yahoo!7's applications on its website. "Google can't do that," he said. "Having an open platform is delivering some very good results. We're in a position to monetise more partner sites than our own and handle large volumes of audiences and page views. But it's not about building volume. We want premium content and inventory."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald