Telecom New Zealand, the biggest telco in the country, has formed a joint venture with Yahoo!7 (the Australian JV that Yahoo has with media company Seven) to be called Yahoo! Xtra, for a joint portal for the country. It will replace the existing XtraMSN site, the JV TNZ had with MSN since 2001, with the initial Yahoo! Xtra services due to go live around March next year. TNZ will have 49 percent in the JV and Yahoo!7 51 percent.
Telecom says that customers of its ISP, Xtra, will not need to change their e-mail address or face increased subscription costs as a result of the change.
Newstalkazb: TNZ is also planning to offload another of its major online properties, with the planned sale of its online Yellow Pages business. Yahoo is understood to be a front runner among the businesses which may purchase the business directory.