VentureBeat

There are a few of these consortiums. There are other consortiums called topix.net and congoo.com. What is this one called?

Improving the user experience? Engaging visitors with relevant content? Innovation?

I agree. Seems like this deal is good for both parties in the short run (newspapers get more onlin reach, yahoo gets help with local sales) but I don't see it how it helps the newspapers address any of the long-term issues impacting the classifieds industry. Moreover, I think there's a signficant issue of who retains account control with local advertisers at the end of this deal. Seems like Yahoo exits the deal with a much stronger hand.

I said I didn't know if newspapers had an alternative. Thinking about it some more, of course they have an alternative. It's this one, suggested earlier Tom Mohr, former Knight Ridder exec. They should create their own property. Hell, if several companies owning more than 150 newspapers can sign a deal together with Yahoo, why can't they come together can create their own site? The real reason is they're stuck in silly legacy turf-battles that have distracted them. Hearst and NewsMedia, for example, consider themselves rivals, and they just can't get in the same boat. I was struck when MediaNews' Dean Singleton took over at the Mercury News, and told us that the main enemy was Hearst (owner the SF Chronicle). I was sitting there, thinking, wow, what about all these online sites and blogs, Craiglist, etc?

Don't forget VentureBeat's own JobBoard competing against the newspapers!

Hey Matt, the reason why the newspapers can't come together and create their own site is they have no idea what they're doing, and they're scared to admit it. Many have no idea how to build a scalable content management platform, and are content to let newsroom executives who don't undnerstand the Web control capital spending, strategy and hiring.

Knight Ridder (and Knight Ridder Digital, R.I.P.) tended to crush some of the most innovative thinking in its organization, because the executives in charge (A) didn't trust anyone who didn't have an MBA and (B) liked to promote people who knew the newspaper business, not the Web. As you know, before KR went belly up, it so royally bungled its blog strategy that it spent more time fighting you and me at the Merc than it did listening to what was making our online efforts successful.

MediaNews has not yet shown any sign that it is digitally wiser than KR was. I hope I'm wrong about this, but I'm afraid management believes this Yahoo thing is a cure-all – that Yahoo will do the Web platform R&D, and all the newspapers will have to do is focus on newsgathering and ad selling. They'll quickly find out they're sadly mistaken. At this stage, smart online publishers are building loyal audiences, not simply posting lots of stories and squeezing pennies out of vertical market advertisers. You build an audience by constantly listening to users, experimenting with features, and obsessing over data that tells you what your customers want. For the most part, newspapers are still bad at all of those things.

I predict that before long, newspaper executives will come to realize that Yahoo isn't interested in building an audience for their newspapers. Yahoo's interested in building an audience for Yahoo, and procuring newspaper content for the cheapest price possible to serve that end. Sure, the newspapers will get a little cut – but Yahoo will get benefits at a far higher margin. Over time, it will serve Yahoo's interest to build direct relationships with local advertisers, cutting out newspapers and their ad salespeople. And it likewise will serve Yahoo to build direct relationships with local journalists, turning them into freelancers and cutting out the newspaper companies and unions.

Again, I hope I'm wrong about all that. I hope these newspapers have a plan to build next-generation content management platforms and hire a slew of programmers. I just sort of doubt it.

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.

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Salutations Two thumbs up to but what does it leave the papers? in regards to Business Property Management! Friday I was thinking the exact same thing. This is a VERY interesting line of thought.

BOOKMARK THIS BLOG NOW!!! This is sooo to the point and well written (but what does it leave the papers?). I wish I had found this blog a long time ago. Originally I was searching Google for information on Business to business property management when I stumbled across you Tuesday.

Hmm. I've seen this before, and believe it won't work. Try to check this out also.

Maybe I won't see this until it happens, anyway. But you can also check this out.

Hi there...Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts about customer marketing..what a nice Thursday .