Yahoo further strengthened its ties to the newspaper industry by announcing plans to  roll out new services and features and adding a 12th newspaper publisher, McClatchy Co., to the consortium founded late last year.

Various elements of the partnership will be implemented in the next few months, said consortium backer Robert W. Decherd, chairman and chief executive officer of Belo Corp.

“The search and content integration activities will begin during the second quarter,” he said. “Content integration is going to be in phases and we hope to complete them in 2008.”

 

Under terms of the beefed-up agreement, newspapers will now place news across Yahoo’s local news modules and begin using Yahoo’s search engine for their Web sites.

“It is clear that newspapers and Yahoo, collectively, bring unique strategic assets to this relationship, but it is their complementary nature that really puts the power of this partnership into focus,” said Sue Decker, executive vice president and head of the advertiser and publisher group at Yahoo.  “The newspaper’s brand, content and sales forces are unparalleled in the local marketplaces.”

Blended options

Newspapers will be able to use Yahoo’s ad-serving targeting and inventory capabilities. Yahoo said its sales force may also sell unused newspaper inventory to national advertisers while newspaper sales forces can sell Yahoo’s local online ad space to local advertisers.

Users will also have access to a customized Yahoo toolbar, which will be distributed on newspaper Web sites.

The newspaper content used within Yahoo’s news modules will be linked back to the newspaper sites.

Hilary Schneider, Yahoo’s executive vice president of local markets and commerce, said that local newspaper content helps ensure that users have the stories that matter most at their fingertips.

“Pulling this kind of local coverage into key integration points across the Yahoo network provides not only a more compelling user experience, but can also be the catalyst for driving significant user traffic to partner Web sites,” she said.

The addition of McClatchy, meantime, brings the number of newspapers in the consortium to 264.

Increase value

McClatchy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the partnership will help the publisher bolster the value of its Real Cities Web operation.

“In addition to that cross-selling between Yahoo and individual newspapers, our Real Cities operation will continue to sell ads into a national network of newspaper Web sites only,” he said. “Its ability to do so will be enhanced by using Yahoo’s ad serving and targeting platform on behalf of advertisers looking for the value of newspaper brands.”

Advertisers will be able to purchase ads on multiple sites by placing only a single order and receiving a single bill, Pruitt said.

Pruitt said the future promise of local online sales is extraordinary.

“Between 2006 and 2010, local online spending is projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent and that isn’t just the steep growth rate, it also represents a big total figure, rising from $3.4 billion to $12.4 billion,” he said.

Follows agreement

McClatchy’s agreement with  Yahoo came a few weeks after the publisher agreed to supply the search engine with news and blogs from McClatchy’s overseas correspondents.

Finally, Yahoo Hot Jobs picked up two new newspaper clients, the Boston Herald and Scranton (Pa.) Times, the search engine said.