Papers Embrace Enemy

On the conference call, newspaper executives said some of their newspapers would be switching their jobs listings to HotJobs from other popular employment sites, like CareerBuilder and Monster Worldwide (MNST - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). Otherwise, they said the partnership would not affect existing relationships with other Web companies, but they were careful to specify that they will be using Yahoo! as their primary online partner.

That marks a rift developing in the publishing world, as other newspaper conglomerates have recently announced their own advertising partnership with Yahoo!'s chief rival, Google. Two weeks ago, Google said it will start selling print ads in newspapers published by the New York Times (NYT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), Washington Post (WPO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), McClatchy (MNI - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), Gannett and Tribune.

That deal will give newspapers access to the hundreds of thousands of advertisers that do business with Google, many of which are new-age Web companies that weren't previously advertising with newspapers.

"We have strong partnerships with many leading newspapers, and we remain committed to working with them as they grow their businesses on line and offline," says Michael Mayzel, a Google spokesman.

Google's most recent partnership with newspapers is currently in a test phase that will last three months, during which the Internet giant will record no revenue as it connects its online advertisers with print space in metro dailies like The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. If the test is a success, Google will probably start taking a small commission on such deals.