ScrippsNews appears to have jumped the gun by a few hours by running a done-deal story about a “wide-reaching alliance” between Yahoo and seven publishers. Some of the details have shifted since Saturday’s WSJ report. Turns out to be seven, not six, publishers representing more than 150 newspapers: E.W. Scripps, Belo Corp., MediaNews Group, Hearst, Lee Enterprises, Cox Newspapers, and Journal Register Co. The publishers have some presence in 13 of the top 15 markets; the claim is the combination of HotJobs and newspaper listings will exceed the combined share of Monster.com and CareerBuilder in 20 of 25 markets. No terms disclosed.
-- The deal includes local news for Yahoo and other Yahoo services for the papers but that part is written about a little gingerly ... “Yahoo and the newspapers in the new alliance foresee the papers’ local stories appearing on Yahoo, with the Internet giant providing services such as mapping and search to the papers’ Web sites.”
-- Advertisers will be able to list in a participating newspaper, HotJobs and across the Yahoo network.
-- Dean Singleton, CEO, MediaNews: “Many, many people have asked ‘what will newspapers do to navigate into the online future. This is the biggest answer we’ve had to date.”
-- Sue Decker, CFO, Yahoo: “We see the content moving in both directions. It’s important to build these partnerships with the highest quality brands that can deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time.” (Decker’s name is in the PR but the head of the unit overseeing HotJobs is Hilary Schneider, who recently joined Yahoo as SVP-Marketplaces and who had served on the boards of CareerBuilder.com and Classified Ventures during her tenure at Knight Ridder. The discussions pre-date her arrival. HotJobs EVP & GM Dan Finnigan has strong neespaper ties and joined the company from KR in 2002.)
-- Mark Contreras, SVP-newspapers, Scripps: “It really gives us the ability to offer variety to what we’re able to offer advertisers, to expose ourselves to a national and international audience, the biggest Internet audience, with Yahoo. ... We think this will turbo-charge classified, particularly the help-wanted - it’ll grow faster than if we went it alone.”
NYT: “The agreement grew out of the existing partnership with HotJobs by MediaNews and Belo. During the next year, the partnership will be extended as newspapers begin displaying their news articles and local ads on Yahoo’s online network. Yahoo, in turn, will make available local event listings, maps, search technology and other content and tools on the newspapers’ Web sites. Yahoo will also use its technology to help newspaper sell online ads.”
-- Some execs involved are pitching this as the most ambitious indusry effort online since the ill-fated New Century Network collapsed nearly a decade ago.
-- Newspaper analyst John Morton says the willingness of papers to work now with Yahoo when they froze out Microsoft Sidewalk shows “the realization that newspapers need to change.”
-- The consortium has 176 papers in 38 states. MediaMews, suggested to us as the leader in this process, and Belo already have partnerships with HotJobs.
CareerSite/PowerOne: Left unanswered so far as I can tell—the future of PowerOne Media, operator of CareerSite amongt other services. The company was formed in late 2001 through the merger of AdOner and PowerAdz.com; the media companies backing it include six of the publishers involved in the HotJobs deal. One scenario suggested to us has MediaNews and Hearst possibly buying out the company although I’m not sure how that would work. We also have heard—and it makes sense—that the newspapers have agreed not to buy or develop competing services.
Future services: HotJobs appears to be the test case ... if it works, other ad verticals will follow. Not sure what the metrics need to be. Also not sure where other ads play in—banners, display, etc. but it would seem a likely extension. Also, conceivably, Yahoo’s acquisition of AdInterax eventually could give newspapers the ability to offer sell-service rich media campaigns.