John Battelle writes:
Yahoo has moved the needle again, adding Local Featured Listings, a way for merchants to buy placement on results pages – it’s bascially sponsored links, but with a twist. I spoke to Paul Levine, who runs Yahoo Local, and he told me that there has been a lot of demand from local merchants to be “at the top of the page” for a given result. Now, for between $20 and $300 a month, they can be.
This reminds me very much of the YP model of paying more or less for size of ad on the page, (they also pay more or less for the headers – ie and ad in Flowers is more expensive than an ad in Scuba Equipment).
Folks are already signing up (see this search for Bike Shop Boulder), and I see this as potentially a significant new revenue stream for Yahoo Local.
