Yahoo to Jump Into Blog Advertising
Yahoo on Wednesday unveiled a beta of the Yahoo Publisher Network, a self-serve advertising network much like Google's AdWords program that also includes features that allow publishers to promote their own sites.
The network will be available to American publishers initially through a beta invite program, and the company hopes to extend the ads to more publishers by the end of the year.
Yahoo spoke to several Web publishers during the initial phases of the project and attempted to factor their suggestions into the end product.
Yahoo says that publishers asked for more ways to enhance content and connect with their users, as well as having more control over how and what ads appear on their Web sites. The company says it hopes to have better customer service than its competitors, also a common request.
"We heard those requests, and we've built a beta product that addresses those needs," Will Johnson, Vice President and General Manager of the Yahoo Publisher Network said. The beta will have all the features most commonly requested by publishers during the alpha phase.
Currently available features like Content Match would enable a publisher to put relevant links on their site and receive revenue when those links are clicked. Another is Y!Q, a feature that allows a publisher to provide the user with contextual search results within the pages by rolling over special links.
More features will be added soon, Johnson promised. "Down the road look for more opportunities through the self-serve platform that draw from other types of Yahoo! content," he said, referring to RSS and shopping opportunites that Yahoo plans to add in the coming months.
Interested Web publishers can sign up for the beta through the Yahoo Publisher Network site.