Natalie Glenn

This week the Athens Banner-Herald announced that they have joined a consortium to give readers and advertisers more access to the powerful suite of Yahoo! tools.

The consortium consists of 270 newspapers in 45 states that now exists as "the biggest partnership of its type in newspaper publishing history," according to the April 17 article. The partnership gives advertisers the opportunity to reach a much wider audience and readers better access to local information.

A key component of the deal is that local Internet users will be able to view local story headlines and local advertisements across almost all of Yahoo!'s content pages. Also, they will have access to Yahoo's powerful utilities, including e-mail and messenger services. In addition, those story headlines also will appear on Yahoo!'s mobile service, called Yahoo Go. The article goes on to say that together, the Banner-Herald and Yahool! will have up to 75% of the Athens Internet market locked up.

The perks of the deal lie largely in advertising as Yahoo! is now able to sell national advertising on local papers' Web sites while local advertisers can opt to have their ads appear on Yahoo's site. For the Banner-Herald, they can now have the power of Yahoo's search engine added to their site.

Click here to read the full article.