Allen Weiner

Memo to Carol Bartz:

It’s a nice achievement that Yahoo! now has 793 newspapers in its consortium, 120 of whom are using its APT advertising platform, but this effort is perhaps an exercise in futility unless the newspapers can figure out a way to cut costs and generate digital dollars in short order. And I wonder why Yahoo! hasn’t helped here.

For instance:

Use its Maven video platform to create a newspaper wide “broadcast network” to sell ads to larger number of eyeballs. It could appeal to both local and national advertisers.
Build a social network platform for newspapers using OpenID or Yahoo! IDs as the common glue that cuts across all newspaper web sites. That one seems like a no-brainer and could give Facebook more than a minor case of agita
Build a crowd-powered, managed consumer news network to provide hyper-local news. Seems like del.icio.us should play a role here.
Revive Yahoo! Live, the socialcasting platform and work with newspapers hungry to do simple live webcasts

That’s four ideas for starters. Act quickly, the doors are closing.