Yahoo, CBS And The 'Local' Wide Web

Call it YouTube envy -- or perhaps another example of the continued rise of the Web as a video medium to challenge the broadcast ways of yore. Just don't forget the local angle.

Yahoo said today it would syndicate local news from 16 of CBS Corporation's television stations.

CBS and Yahoo plan to share revenue from advertising sold adjacent to CBS Stations' content on the site. CBS called the deal the first video agreement between a network-owned television station group and an Internet news provider/aggregator/portal.

The result is that Yahoo users will be able to view 10 to 20 local news stories per day from each of the 16 television markets taking part.

Each video will be station-branded and can be found on Yahoo's homepage as well as throughout Yahoo! News.

The deal is exclusive. Yahoo will be the only major news aggregator to syndicate the CBS stations' content and you'll only find CBS-branded local news on Yahoo.

LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, announced a Yellow Pages-like referral feature today. Co-founder Konstantin Guericke told internetnews.com the company has its eye on getting a piece of the $26 billion local Yellow Pages business.

Last summer, Amazon.com began selling groceries on its Web site. When Microsoft released its latest search engine early this fall, analysts applauded its local search features first.

After all, the local approach has been good for Google, which depends largely on the small transactional advertisements that make up its high revenue AdWords product.

Yesterday's classified ads, you'll remember, were small boxes of words placed within the context of local news.

Many industry watchers say those advertisements and eBay's listings are today's local classified ads. Now, local TV news is joining the online party.