Yellow unveils new partnership with Yahoo!7

Yellow® unveils new partnership with Yahoo!7

Yellow Pages Group® New Zealand (Yellow®) announced today a new partnership with Yahoo!7, one of Australia and New Zealand’s leading online media companies. Yellow® and Yahoo!7 will join forces to partner Yahoo!’s global portfolio of technology platforms with New Zealand’s best and most comprehensive Yellow pages® business data.

“The Yellow®Yahoo!7 partnership is another step in our $40 million

investment in the business”, says Yellow® CEO, Bruce Cotterill. “In addition to recruiting one hundred new sales staff, we’ll be continuing to roll out new digital enhancements like this one.”

“Yellow® has a 90 percent market share in New Zealand and we are often the first and only stop for small businesses’ marketing needs. This provides us with an enormous amount of information and reach, and Yahoo!Xtra users will get the benefit of this.

“Yahoo!7 indisputably already has the technology to deliver what our users want, and this partnership will ensure we are at the forefront of technology innovation.”

Yahoo!7 was chosen by Yellow® as its new platform technology provider to power and bring to life Yellow®'s search and content experiences.

According to Yellow®’s Digital Director, Peter Crowe, this is part of a multipronged

strategy to deliver innovation to consumers searching for local businesses and services.

“Our partnership with Yahoo!7 will enable us to bring innovation to New Zealand very quickly, for example, everyone who searches on Yahoo!Xtra will find Yellow pages® business data.

“We know that currently users’ search experience on Yellow Pages is not optimal, but this partnership will take it above and beyond the basic search and do so much more. It’s all about getting back to the basics and investing in our core processes and building the platform to deliver real innovation to our advertisers and users.”

Rohan Lund, Yahoo!7 CEO, says, "The agreement not only provides Yellow with a powerful technology platform with which to compete in New Zealand, but also provides Yahoo!Xtra users with native access to the best Yellow pages® business data in New Zealand, so they can easily find a local business to transact with at the point of inspiration".

With over 300,000 business listings and more than one million total listings including residential, Yellow® is a bank of comprehensive data. The Yellow® network of products includes Yellow® print, online, mobile and 018®, allowing advertisers to reach customers wherever they go.

The Yellow®Yahoo!7 partnership is one of many new digital enhancements that Yellow® has underway and part of a $40 million investment in the business.

This latest innovation will be a fundamental shift for Yellow®’s 2.4 million Kiwi users. Consumers will notice some big changes over time and there will be even more benefits for advertisers. As part of the agreement, Yellow pages® NZ will become the exclusive provider of local business data for Yahoo!Xtra, New Zealand’s largest online portal. The Yahoo!Xtra distribution agreement will lift usage of Yellow pages® business data and as a result give advertisers a bigger return on their investment.

ENDS

About Yellow Yellow was formed in 1988 and publishes the print, online and mobile directories for Yellow, as well as the White pages® and the Local directory™. Yellow owns the 018® directory assistance service, a majority stake in 50splus website grownups.co.nz, and publishes the Retirement guide™ and New Zealand tourism guide™, an award-winning online tourism directory. Yellow aims to help New Zealanders complete their missions and get the Job done®.

For more information please visit www.yellow.co.nz

Other Yellow® applications

The first Yellow® iPhone application was launched in August 2009 and an update was released in October 2009 to include residential searching. Since then Yellow® has listened to New Zealand iPhone users and some of the new features developed have been a result of their feedback. The latest app will replace the October 2009 version.

Yellow® also launched the official menus.co.nz iPhone app in August this year. The app currently offers a rich location-based guide to more restaurants, bars and other wining and dining venues across the country than any other mobile or online solution. The Menus app leverages the device’s GPS to suggest venues and extends Menus’ leadership in the restaurant review category by offering a ratings and reviews functionality from the device.

Other mobile devices

Yellow® plans to extend its portfolio of mobile apps to support all key Smartphone platforms in New Zealand in the near future. Yellow®’s recently launched mobile websites: m.yellow.co.nz; m.whitepages.co.nz; and m.menus.co.nz; are available on all mobile devices able to browse the web and can be easily accessed by texting ‘mobile’ to 361.

Yahoo!7

Yahoo!7 (yahoo7.com.au) was formed as a 50-50 partnership between the Seven Network Limited (ASX: SEV) and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), Yahoo!7 brings together the successful Australian internet business, Yahoo! Australia & NZ, and the online assets and television and magazine content of the Seven Network, one of Australia’s leading media companies. The company also combines the strengths of Yahoo! search and communications capabilities and its global internet network, with Seven’s rich media and entertainment content and marketing capabilities.

About Yahoo!Xtra

Yahoo!Xtra is a joint venture between Telecom New Zealand and Yahoo!7.

Yahoo!Xtra’s vision is to be the centre of people’s online lives by offering Kiwis dynamic, relevant experiences on one of New Zealand’s favourite websites. Led by passionate Kiwis, Yahoo!Xtra is dedicated to producing and sourcing fresh local and global content, served up using innovative technologies and products. Yahoo!Xtra is the #1 NZ Homepage and #1 NZ Web Portal.

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