US: Yahoo drives more readers to online editions

US: Yahoo drives more readers to online editions

An alliance between Yahoo and more than 775 newspapers has helped the papers ramp up online readership, according to Yahoo.

Links on Yahoo, Yahoo Sports or Yahoo Finance facilitate access to newspaper websites such as The Dallas Morning News, which can receive up to 800.000 visitors in a couple of hours. According to its deputy managing editor, Anthony Moor, visits through Yahoo links represent "27% of the day's page views, and 65% of the day's unique visitors."

The New York Daily News has also seen its visits increase, its vice president Jon Beck acknowledges that Yahoo links brings "a steady growth of traffic" to their site.

For Yahoo, this alliance allows them to give their readers a "more valuable local perspective" according to Scott Moore, senior vice president and head of media at Yahoo.

Opinion: Without reader comments "you're not really online," with Carole Tarrant

In a recent On the Media interview with Carole Tarrant, the Roanoke Times editor defends the place of user comments online - an embattled subject in recent weeks, one taken up by blogging heads Gawker and BuzzMachine, alike. 

While many have pointed to a void of thoughtful discussion in the comment box, as Gawker's Sheila McClear recently said, "...There is no interesting discussion. Almost never. Not even from the mythical supersmart New York Times readers."

Tarrant disagrees, saying that users moderate themselves once the community has been defined.

"...When you've been doing it long enough, I think the community of people participating, they know what the ground rules are. And I really believe if you're a newspaper online and you don't allow this, you're not really online," said Tarrant. "We have a whole generation that's trained to expect to be able to voice their opinion, not just to read the news but to talk about it or share it, and that may be ugly or it may be really provocative, but I want to hear it."..