Yahoo Plans One-Stop Web-Advertising Shop

Aiming to increase revenues in the face of a proposed Microsoft buyout, Yahoo is working on a system that will provide businesses with one-stop shopping for graphic advertisements across Yahoo’s partner sites, the Wall Street Journal reports. The system, called AMP, will let businesses buy ads such as banners—targeted by standardized demographic and geographic information—to appear on a range of sites.

Publishers will be able to manage their own ads and sell ads for others by commission. “That's huge in terms of reducing friction in the marketplace,” says an advertising analyst, adding, "If Microsoft buys Yahoo, they would be foolish to dismantle this." The system will hit newspaper sites first—good news for their wallets, one Yahoo partner said. (More Yahoo stories.)