Why Yahoo's Panama won't be enough to close the ad revenue gap with Google

[mandy]

The Web's most visited site lags Google by billions in advertising revenue, and it's going to take more than its new ad-delivery technology to close the gap...

Now a new year is on the horizon, and there are hopeful signs that Yahoo, like the recently reappeared Rocky, is ready for a comeback. The most encouraging is the impending full release of Yahoo's "Project Panama." The long-awaited technology promises to whip Yahoo back into shape by delivering better targeted advertising with greater impact on Yahoo's bottom line.

But Yahoo may need more than Panama to convince investors it's a winner. While the company has concentrated on search advertising, rivals have gained ground by focusing on other methods of delivering targeted ads and brand experiences to online consumers. The competition also has been working hard to sell advertising on the social-networking and user-generated content pages that have exploded on the Web in the past two years, seemingly eclipsing the amount of more specialized editorial content around which Yahoo sells much of its most expensive advertising...

full article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/c...exclusives