SBC's Yellow Pages group, known as SmartPages.com, will resell ads and sponsored listings for Yahoo Yellow Pages by the end of this year as part of a growing alliance between the two companies.
Under Monday's agreement, SBC's Yellow Pages sales force will sell SmartPages.com/Yahoo Yellow Pages ads as part of a special SmartPages.com offering.
SBC said Yahoo's strong brand would help its advertisers reach more customers. Yahoo said the deal gives it access to a strong sales channel.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
SBC and Yahoo are already partners on a co-branded dial-up and digital subscriber line service, which will eventually be aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. The dial-up service, "SBC Yahoo Dial," recently became available. The companies plan to launch the DSL service later this summer, with a DSL service designed for small businesses expected to debut next year.
Online and offline directories continue to be a solid business as other aspects of telecommunications companies' business have floundered. Qwest Communications International, for example, is in the process of selling off its phone directory business, which generated $1.6 billion in revenue in 2001.
But there is plenty of competition in online directories. Microsoft, NTT Communications, IBM, SAP and Hewlett-Packard are part of an alliance to provide a Yellow Pages-like directory for online services using the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) specification.
"The Yellow Pages advertising market is a multibillion-dollar industry in the U.S. alone, and the combination of Yahoo's brand and reach with SBC's high-quality sales teams and customer service strongly positions us for success in this key area,'" said Yahoo Vice President Elizabeth Blair in a statement.
SBC teamed with other traditional phone companies in 1998 to come up with the first incarnation of its online Yellow Pages.