Publisher Account Interface to experience scheduled maintenance Friday, Oct. 20, from 8:00 p.m. to approximately 12:00 a.m., Pacific Time

On Friday night, from 8 p.m until about 12:00 a.m., Pacific Time, we’ll be doing a little scheduled maintenance on the secure account interface.  For the duration of this maintenance your account will be unavailable.
 

This will not impact your account earnings nor the serving of ads to your site.
 

We apologize for any inconvenience.

—The Team

New platform ushers in search advertising enhancements

If you’re in business you’ve probably heard the famous truism, “I know that half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half,” uttered by John Wanamaker, who opened the first department store in Philadelphia in 1870.

You may also have heard that Yahoo! Search Marketing went live with a major new initiative designed, in part, to help tackle Wanamaker’s problem.

It’s a completely new, completely redesigned ad platform that provides businesses with an easier way to connect to customers, and will provide more tools and capabilities to advertisers, along with an enhanced, more relevant experience to users.

So what’s in it for me, the publisher?
If you are a publisher not currently using Yahoo! Search Marketing products, such as Sponsored Search, this release will only affect your business in small ways. The changes you should notice in your ads are those we have noted previously and include:

• The removal of ellipses (…) 
• Fewer truncated words
• The inclusion of 40-character titles on certain ad units
• A change in the number of ads displayed on certain ad layouts

These changes are now live across the network. Other than that your experience should not change—at least not in the short term. Over the long term, however, this initiative, which touches systems all across Yahoo!, should improve the relevancy of your ads.

Double duty
If you are a publisher who also uses Yahoo! Search Marketing, here’s a run-down of some of the enhancements that you’ll be able to take advantage of once you have been upgraded to the new system:

• An intuitive new control panel
  Using this completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what’s working and what’s not.
• Fast ad activation
  Most ads should now go live within minutes.
• Easy ad testing
  You’ll be able to test multiple versions of an ad to find the message that works best.
• Geo-targeting
  Target your customers as broadly or narrowly as you want on a geographic basis, and customize your ads to help control costs.
• Campaign budgeting, forecasting and scheduling
  You’ll be able to create, budget and schedule your individual advertising campaigns for greater control over your advertising strategy and spending.
• See-through visibility
  The new interface can will help you understand how well your ads are performing relative to your competitors.

For more information on the new search advertising platform visit the Yahoo! Search Marketing home page.

Wanamaker was able to open his department store because technological innovations like steam power and the telegraph provided the means to acquire and ship goods faster and at more affordable prices. The Internet has accelerated this process to lightning speed. We think that the new advertising platform will help take even more friction out of marketing, benefiting advertisers, publishers and consumers alike.

Congrats to the team who worked so hard on the new search advertising platform!

    

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor

 

 

Volunteer and get free promotion on Yahoo! Finance

You may remember hearing about the Yahoo! Finance Badge on the YPN Blog, or, maybe, you have already added the badge to your site. The Yahoo! Finance Badge enables websites of all sizes to publish stock charts, quotes and news headlines from Yahoo! Finance.

Yahoo! Finance is interested in exploring different advertising options for the badge, and we’re looking for publisher and bloggers to help us with this task. I’m organizing an ad test and am actively looking for participants. As a thank you, all participants selected by Yahoo! will receive free promotion space on Yahoo! Finance for 24 hours at a day, time and location designated by Yahoo!. Additionally, this is an opportunity for you to provide feedback to Yahoo! on what elements create the best ad experience for your site.

I’m looking for five blogs, each with a minimum of 200,000 monthly page views. You’ll need to display our badge on your site for two months in your most trafficked areas. If you are interested in participating, please contact me at katieh(at)yahoo-inc(dot)com.

—Katie Hartnack Beltramini, Yahoo! Finance Product Manager
 

Workshop itinerary posted

It’s time to get your groove on and prepare for Yahoo’s first ever public Hack Day, a 24-hour extravaganza of mash-up madness. If you were considering going but weren’t really sure what was in it for you, Friday’s workshop schedule has been posted over at the Yahoo! Interface blog. There will be lots of stuff for both budding and accomplished publishers. Oh, and it’s free!

The workshops are open to you whether you want to participate in the full 24-hour hacking cycle or not. If want to just come and learn, just go to Upcoming.org and make your desires known.

Still not convinced? In addition to the workshops, the all-night hacking sessions and the fabulous networking opportunities, there will be prize give-aways and cutting edge musical guests, including two old friends, the mash-up DJ duo of Bootie fame, Adrian & the Mysterious D. 

If you’re planning to create and show a project hack, visit the Hack Day web site to request an invite.

And for the latest, look to the Hack Day blog.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor

Check’s in the… Well, you get the idea…  

August balances will be calculated and both check and direct deposit payments will be issued Sept. 26, 2006 to qualified publishers. Please note: In order to receive a payment, you must accrue $100 in your available balance.

—The Bank Manager

Publisher Account Interface to experience scheduled maintenance Friday, Sept. 22, from 8:00 p.m. to approximately 1:00 a.m., Pacific Time 

On Friday night, from 8 p.m until about 1:00 a.m., Pacific Time, we’ll be doing a little scheduled maintenance on the secure account interface.  For the duration of this maintenance your account will be unavailable.

This minor bit of monkey business will not impact your account earnings nor the serving of ads to your site.

We apologize for any inconvenience. 

—The Team

Some publishers to see changes in their ads

We’ve been doing some tinkering under the bonnet recently, so some of you may notice a few changes in your ads. The changes you’re likely to see include the removal of ellipses (…) and truncated words, the inclusion of 40-character titles on certain ad units, and a change in the number of ads displayed on certain ad layouts.

These enhancements have to do with our efforts to upgrade our contextual advertising product, and in the coming weeks will take effect across the entire network. They come in response to your feedback and should, in the long run, help enhance your account performance. We’ll share more details with you as they become available.
 

—Tom Furukawa, Director, Product Management

Now anyone can provide feedback on our network

Like a cross librarian “shushing” noisy students in the book stacks, YahooSarah last week showed how good publishers have gone bad by folding, spindling and even ignoring our Terms and Conditions and our Guidelines, as well as our ad code. But as some of you have pointed out, a few, very “naughty little publishers” continue to ignore the rules and go right on abusing their privileges. Until now, many of you conscientious teacher’s pets who might have wanted to report abuse, have not been able to for lack of an appropriate channel. 

Report abuses

Today, we’re pleased to announce that the blog will now feature a permanent link to our feedback email box that anyone can use, located under “Network Feedback” in the right-hand column. If you, our network’s volunteer hall monitors, catch someone placing images next to ads, splattering ads willy-nilly all over their pages, nicking other sites’ content, or running with scissors, let us know and they’ll be sent to the Virtual Principal’s Office.

We won’t be able to respond to all feedback that we receive but, rest assured, we will be monitoring all submissions and, perhaps, doing show and tell later on.

Email feedback to ypn-feedback(at)cc.yahoo-inc.com or click on the mailto link at right, under “Network Feedback.” Remember, if you’re already in our beta program, you can continue to submit feedback directly.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Vice Principal
 

So, where’s the money?
 

June balances will be calculated and both check and direct deposit payments will be issued July 25, 2006 to qualified publishers. Please note: In order to receive a payment, you must accrue $100 in your available balance.

—The Management

Getting to Know You

As part of our continuing efforts to identify and respond to your needs, we’re looking for a few good publishers to take part in a pair of research studies. You don’t necessarily have to be in the beta program to qualify for either study, and both studies offer a financial honorarium.

The first study is for non-Yahoo! Publisher Network beta publishers only, and involves focus group interviews in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose (during the SES 2006 conference) or New York City. If you are not part of the Yahoo! Publisher Network and are interested in participating, send us an email with the following information and our folks will get back to you with the details:

• Full name
• Company name
• Primary site URL
• City
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Type of publisher (domain portfolio owner, blog, social network, Directory, e-commerce)
• Primary site page views per month
• List that you are interested in focus groups in the subject line 

(Please note that we will contact you only if participants are needed in your city.)

The second study is an online survey for both Yahoo! Publisher Network beta and non-beta publishers. To participate, simply click here. You’ll be asked a set of questions up-front to see if you qualify.

What’s in it for you, besides a better network to work with? One: It won’t hurt—we’re researching your publishing needs, not pain management therapies. It might even be a little bit fun to learn about the direction of the Yahoo! Publisher Network. Two: Cold, hard cash. Both studies offer a cash honorarium if you qualify.

Your information will be used only for research purposes under Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Privacy Policy.

Thanks for your help.

—Patrick Gunn & the Yahoo! Publisher Network Insights Team