Friday, December 3, 2010

Yahoo shutters its text-ad business

Yahoo will shut down its text-advertising network on April 30, Ad Age reports. The decision comes amid a losing battle with Google, which has generally dominated the text-ad market. Yahoo will shift its focus to premium display ads. 
The network, dubbed The Yahoo Publisher Network Beta, provided text-ad service for blogs and smaller sites. It was seen as the company's answer to Google's AdSense. Publishers could join the network on an invite-only basis, and receive text ads that were specific to the site's content. They also took in a share of the ad revenue.
The network's demise won't generate much sympathy, as it was utilized by a relatively small number of publishers. It took up a tiny fraction of Yahoo's business, and was stuck with the "beta" tag despite years of existence.
Under CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo has been cutting back on its initiatives to focus on the premium display ad market. It recently positioned its Right Exchange network as a high-end product by eliminating some of the ad inventory.

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