By: Lucia Moses First Content, Now Classified Ads Attract Portal's Attention
Newspaper classified directors are used to looking at Internet listings sites as a threat to their
precious revenue source. They would do better to embrace them, said Ellen F. Siminoff, vice
president/business development for Yahoo!
Newspapers have been slow to come around the idea that the future is in partnerships, but it's not
too late, Siminoff told a gathering of classified executives June 15 at their annual meeting in San
Francisco.
'We'd love to work with newspapers to give additional distribution to classifieds,' she said.
Newspapers missed opportunities by not embracing the Web sooner, she said. Siminoff's not just
speaking as an outsider. From 1994 to 1996, she worked in print and online classifieds at the Los
Angeles Times.
During that time, she said, the paper erred in not letting customers place classifieds that included
URLs and by not letting people buy classifieds in the Orange County edition alone. 'So what happened?
The Orange County Register ate our lunch,' she said.
The lesson? 'There's never a win by shutting people off from the competition,' she said. Other
companies, such as Tribune Co., which is acquiring L.A. Times parent Times Mirror, are more
forward-thinking in terms of the Internet, she noted.
Yahoo! may be seeking partnerships with newspapers, but it's also been rumored to be interested in buying
them. Siminoff said that's not in the plans. The company has looked at newspapers that have been on the
market recently, but 'not seriously,' she said.
'It would be different from our current strategy,' she said.
Siminoff believes that while their rich local content and ability to reach a variety of readers are plusses
for newspapers, the greatest classified growth potential will be online. Readership also remains a challenge,
she said.
'I think the younger generation is not necessarily being brought up to read the newspaper. They're being
brought up to read the newspaper online,' she said. 'That's why it's important for newspapers to leverage
their information online. I would start to look at yourselves instead of newspapers as local information
aggregators.'
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