Here is an interesting development – Newspapers will partner with Yahoo. I find it surprising that we are quickly approaching 2007 and the antique newspapers are finally making a serious adjustment towards an online focus. The dinosaurs of the newspaper industry may have made the move too late – it is hard to say. The younger generations are not newspaper readers. Instead, they consume their news in an electronic format. Suffice to say, it is a move in the right direction.
One piece of information stands out for our business:
The consortium said its first move would be to bolster Yahoo’s HotJobs online classified service, allowing advertisers to post job listings in newspapers, on newspaper Web sites and on the Yahoo network.
We have dabbled with HotJobs in the past, but we have not had much success with their online job board. Their impending tie-in with the newspaper postings will cause us to give them a second look. The newspapers tend to have strong local brands for employment ads and can be effective for city-focused sourcing. I would say this aspect of the agreement will surely bolster both the local newspapers employment ad revenue and HotJobs’ overall effectiveness in competing with Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.