Archive: February, 2008

A conglomeration of four large American newspaper companies is forming to sell advertising space on the Internet sites of newspapers those companies own. It is estimated that the total advertising audience could reach over 50 million unique visitors each month.

The new advertising company, quadrantONE, will receive a portion of online ad-space on sites owned by The Tribune Company, Hearst Newspapers, the Gannet Company, and The New York Times Company. Three well known newspapers included in the advertising conglom are: The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and the Houston Chronical. There are several smaller, more localized papers included as well.

The basic idea seems to revolve around a one-call ad center based in Chicago that will automatically feed online advertising to each newspaper property, an important efficiency not reached by other online news ad-schemes such as Yahoo’s newspaper consortium, the Newspaper National Network, or the New Century Network of the late 1990’s.

Sensing an opening and trying to recoup massive advertising losses, the introduction of quadrantONE into the online advertising market by the biggest US publishers further demonstrates an inherent weakness in that marketplace. Currently, online advertising is dominated by Google AdWords with Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN’s adCenter running far behind.

We hate it when our successful friends get the shorter end of the stick. Yahoo is shedding some serious talent. Among that talent is a good friend of mine and one of the stars in the SEO community.

Know anyone looking for THE In-House SEO expert? Jessica Bowman, widely considered the úber-expert on In-House SEO, was laid off from Yahoo on Monday.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a few days until Jessica made an official announcement herself. She dropped the news this morning at her SEM / SEO In-house Blog saying,

“As you know by now, life at Yahoo! wasn’t pleasant this week and I’m happy to report that that their in-house SEO program is now so good, that I was laid off!

I knew that my job would be done when an in-house evangelist wasn’t needed anymore. On the way out I got hugs from engineers… it was a job well done.“

Jessica was hired by Yahoo earlier this year to plan, promote and execute SEO techniques on various Yahoo properties. According to other sources I have in Yahoo, she did an amazing job but her position was not considered “bare-bones essential” for the continued operation of the company. (Ever wonder why a search engine might need a SEO?)