Yahoo! committed to social media

Media Week 18-Sep-07

Yahoo! offers "unparalleled scale" when it comes to online media in the UK, according to Blake Chandlee, commercial director for Yahoo! UK and Ireland, following the online firm's deal with social network Bebo.

Yahoo! last week signed an exclusive partnership with Bebo to sell display advertising across the social network, providing a vital in-road to the teen to 25-year-old market for advertisers booking campaigns through Yahoo!.

"The key for me is scale," said Chandlee. "This reinforces Yahoo!'s commitment to social media and we are now by far the biggest player in the online space."

Chandlee said that Yahoo! has been keeping investors informed about extending its advertising network in the UK, but has kept plans quiet in the industry until now.

"We're after one or two deals like this, not dozens of them," he said. "What we want to do is help the guys at BlueLithium accelerate the publisher side of the business by giving them the resources to go from 100 to 300 publishers in the network."

Mark Charkin, head of sales at Bebo, said the deal meant that Bebo's sales team could focus on developing branding campaigns on the site - something unique to social networking.