Yahoo! announced this morning a partnership with a number of large newspaper chains, controlling a total of 176 publications, to share content and functionality. Both Yahoo! and local papers around the US are in a state of crisis, which is amazing if you consider the market and mind shares both still control. Will this partnership make a significant difference for either party? I don’t think it will.
Small, agile, low-overhead local sites that incorporate everything from the authenticity of blogging to the power of video to the immediacy and usefulness of mobile devices are just around the corner. Newspapers will likely retain superior access to other lumbering social institutions for some time, but all parties are going to have to change faster than they will be comfortable with.
The partnership will include the following:
- Local content will appear on Yahoo! presumably similar to the way AP content does now. That’s a logical and smart move; though local newspaper content is hardly thriving perhaps an infusion of traffic will help improve it.
- Local jobs listings will appear on Yahoo! HotJobs. I don’t think anyone cares about this - there’s such a proliferation of online job listings that no jobseeker is likely to rely on one centralized site. Imagine trying to be the all-encompassing housing listing site - that too would be a losing proposition.
- Yahoo will sell ads, provide site search, maps and the Yahoo! toolbar on local news sites. This will mean nothing unless the content on those sites become for more dynamic and compelling.
Comparisions are being drawn in the NYT to Google’s recent partnership with a smaller number of more high profile publications and to similar efforts that have failed in the past decade. Google’s newspaper deal is of course just one of many things they are working on, including selling radio advertising. This Yahoo! deal is too little too late.
It’s a new world and both of these companies face incredible competition. Those competitors, best exemplified by local blogging networks but ultimately just a web of diffused readership, are just beginning to get their game on.
Is there any hope for local papers? The smartest ones are looking to leading examples, like the Lawrence, Kansas Journal World. That local paper has long done incredibly innovative things online - everything from local music blogs to mobile notification of schedule changes for local kids’ sports games. There is hope, but it’s going to require a greater paradigm shift than is represented by today’s announcement of co-operation between staid local sites and a giant portal. The things made possible by new media are just too exciting; this deal will go down in history as a tiny band-aid on top of a massive hemorrhaging in the old media industry.
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I think industries that tried to preserve their traditional channels versus developing strategies for and adapting to the Web are hurting right now, so it’s nice to finally see them taking the right steps. Google’s my go-to for news over anybody else because I’m used to the format and can easily search blogs if I need to, but the web’s a big place, I think there’s room for everybody if companies are smart about it.
It’s fashionable here in the Valley to write off Yahoo! as a lumbering outdated beast that is slouching towards irrelevance — and certainly the company is not free from issues — but out there in the real world, it’s still the go-to site in ways that Google is not. My middle-class, middle-American in-laws use Yahoo! daily. They rarely use Google.
Yahoo is smart to recognize that content, not search, is where they can maintain an edge. Forming a alliance with local newspapers is a play towards greater localization and personalization of new media. Executed properly, it could strengthen their role as the anti-Google.
Why would an all-encompassing housing site be any worse an idea than an all-encompassing search? Google seems to be doing pretty well…
Nathan: You’d be more likely to go to a search site to look for multiple job sites than you would be to go to one single job site I think. That’s what I meant to say, that there are some verticals where surveying the field is so important that a destination portal strategy doesn’t seem like a good one to me.
NJG: Stock price is down substantially and Yahoo! says advertising is suffering dramatically. Obviously many people do love Yahoo! but Google is dominating both innovation and advertising growth.
i doubt this will work out either - local content has a local audience who more than likely will go straight to the source rather than through Yahoo!.
No.
Marshall, I think it’s a bit too early to be thinking game over or ‘too late’ with this deal. The fact of the matter is many people still don’t even know what a blog is (I’m in meetings all the time where that is the case). It’s great that some sites get blogging and have mobile access but at the end of the day simply having original content is still the most important piece of the equation.
Obviously many people do love Yahoo! but Google is dominating both innovation and advertising growth.
That or dominating click fraud growth.
Sorry, naysayers; there will be plenty of room in the marketplace for both “new media” and legacy media . . . and will be for many decades to come. Plenty of time for newpapers, magazines, TV, radio, etc, to make the changes and adjustments (including wise partnerships with others–such as Yahoo–who have core competencies they don’t) needed to stay relevant, timely . . . and profitable.
Part of the explanation for why it doesn’t seem so to some is due to perception, not reality. As is the case with the tabloids, “upheaval” and “bad” news proves the greater draw to readers than “all’s well” type news stories.
Such reporting makes the highs seem much higher than they really are . . . and the lows seem much lower than they really are.
Fact is, while all of us spend much (if not too much) of our time reading our favorite blogs, news sites, etc; for a very large percentage of Americans–where, by the way, most of the spendable money and net worth lie–still embrace that which they are most comfortable with; newspapers, magazines, etc.
Has the Internet sent shock waves through the offices of legacy media? Sure it has.
But the sky is not falling, and the world is not about to end, for the “old school” media of this world.
Not if they continue to make the adjustments needed . . . embrace the changes required . . . and develope the vision necessary.
The result? Employees, investors, and yes; their stock holders as well; will feast on the fruits of such labors.
Though it may not seem so today; especially to those with more time on their hands than money in their pockets; this new media/legacy media partnership (and its coming expansion) will one day be seen as one of the most prescient business moves of this decade.
Congratulations are in order for both Yahoo and the newspapers for embracing the future.
Let’s keep it going.
This is just the beginning,expect all major local newsies to partner 100% with leading ‘portal aggregators’ (and stop trying to build their own mediocre sites) and expect it to work in getting middle-america the information it needs to function just fine. Most americans are happy with their Chevys and Fords and dont need to make the switch to a BMW they dont need nor care about…
this is bad news for the 000s of smaller organizations that feed off the newspaper sites as the portal/aggregators will hurt their ability to grow.
Yeah Yahoo for figuring this one out…..
I know that Yahoo has had a tough year but isn’t it kind of stretch to imply in your headline that Yahoo needs this to save the company? Yes, they have lost market share to Google but it’s a little premature to declare that Yahoo needs a move like this to survive.
for the record i almost never read blogs. this one, gofugyourself.com and guy kawasaki’s and that’s it. i never visit any of them regularly.
i think everybody’s overestimating the popularity of blogs, honestly. high authority bloggers (aka, om malik, tech crunch, etc.) are where the popularity is, not so much the average joe talking about whatever is going on at school, etc. yet everybody thinks they need to add this to their platform. traditional media would probably do well with just creating and promoting blogs of their most popular journalists, then allowing readers to post comments like business week, SF chronicle, etc. do now. It’s not that creating user driven content on newspaper sites isn’t without benefit, it’s just that hearing everybody jump to offer user driven content makes me think there’s a lot people don’t understand about the market.
M: I think Spokane’s Spokesman-Review is not brought up often enough. They do an excellent job with social media, not just in sending OUT info but welcoming eyes INTO what they do.
I wouldn’t be too hasty to condemn this deal. It may be the future aimed straight at Google’s news supply.
Right now, if one wants news in a hurry, the market, the latest plane crash, or what your local city council did last night about whatever, most of us go to Google.
Gee. And what does Google do? Links us to the stories mostly from newspapers. And what does Google pay? Not squat.
Hmmm. Newspapers have tried charging users for content; most have abandoned he effort. But then, let’s think about this: Google has ads. Google has tons of money. Google is using newspaper (and TV and radio) content free. Gee.
The future, perhaps is looming.
It’s funny, most of the people who have left comments here have disagreed with my negative assessment of the deal but most of the people linking to this post agree with it. Probably doesn’t mean much, just funny.
Marshall — How could this be too late? Do you have facts to support this or just mere narrow minded speculation based on the world you belong to centered on your own online activity?
Assuming they are late, What do you suggest they should do? Sit longer and remain an audience? That’s loser man.
Yahoo should focus on their deal, snatch learnings from Google’s past experiences, refine their execution and overtake their competition.
The majority of the soon-to-be users of HotJobs won’t operate like the readers of this blog. To them, HotJobs will serve as a local recruitment hub. So, while there might be a proliferation of job sites on the web, there will only be one getting power pimped by that person’s local newspaper. That top of mind awareness will still out-perform anything Google has to say about where to go for a large (localized) audience.
I think that’s a huge part of this deal.
I agree with MarkG. Local newspapers should also focus on building better news sites.
People who want true local content, WANT to turn to their local newspaper. They have for years. The hometown newspaper is synonomous with “local”… it has the brand and the means to provide meaningful local information to the people in the community that it serves.
Where newspapers’ web strategies have fallen short in my opinion, is in not providing USER-CENTERED access to this information. THIS is the major component of web 2.0 that I think the newspapers need to embrace. Provide easy, useful access to the information. Don’t spam us with popups, and registrations, and aweful designs. And for God’s sake, don’t add features for the sake of adding features.
Look at LJWorld.com… sure there are incredibly innovative features like mobile, and blogs galore. However, the true innovation is in it’s clean, pleasant presentation. Without that, it could have all the features in the world, but i wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t stick around to check them out.
Seems to me that Yahoo wins in this deal (increased local content for them), and the users and the newspapers lose out.
They can partner all they want, but who cares. The last time I went to the newspaper for anything was to light my BBQ.
If I want to buy or sell something I go to http://craigslist.com, and have done so for six years now, I meet my fantastic girlfriend (3/years), sold my car, found a car, I started a photo hosting service to help craigslist users put photos in there ads called http://ImageDeposit.com.
What’s my point? I love craigslist and so do a zillion other people; Craigslist seems to be the dominant player with 5 billion page views per month.
If the headline had read [Yahoo acquires Craigslist] that would be something to talk about.
Job Boards Continue In Reverse. I blogged about this the other day, but will add my two cents here and you can view more if you like.
Is their no innovation left in these companies? Aren’t we moving away from newspaper readership as it descends and is documented time and time again? As these sites are losing market share, market dollars and are struggling with new Web 2.0 tools like our Push Posting 2.0 they are trying to stay in the game however newspapers, mass marketing and a mass audience are not the way to go. The way to go is a targeted granular approach and utilizing tools to reach passive job seekers. Last count their were 40,000 job boards for active candidates, however companies and recruitment advertising pay for performance like ours will only grow and prosper.
I currently use topix.net to perform my local news searches. Would be nice to see something similar from Yahoo!. Especially if I was able to customize my Yahoo! page to include streams of news I am interested in and could vote (like StumbleUpon) whether I want to see more stories on a topic or not, thus allowing it to become smarter with time.