Local newspapers have it hard when it comes to claiming a slice of the billions of ad dollars spent online. Big marketers that want to send a report to the masses are more likely to turn to big Web companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, and the huge networks they’re tapped into. “What [national advertisers] have always done is seek the easiest solution — a couple of big portals — to give them national reach,” says Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital Ventures, the online division of the Gannett newspaper chain.

But now, companies representing 174 small papers and other publications are banding together to form their task easier. Four of the nation’s largest newspaper owners, Gannett, Hearst, New York Times and the Tribune, have formed an advertising consortium committed to attracting marketers that seek big audiences through local channels.

The hope is the combined advertising network, dubbed quadrantOne, will attract advertisers previously turned off by

the daunting task of amassing audiences of millions by buying space individually on dozens of smaller Web sites. “Local publishers just don’t have the scale to compete with the big portals,” says Dana Hayes, quadrantOne’s interim CEO and Tribune Interactive’s senior vice president of sales. “So what quadrantOne is really looking to do is to create a virtual portal.”

Quality, Scale, and Placement

Joining forces, however, is only part of the uphill struggle against tech’s titans. The new network will have to compete vigorously in three key arenas: site quality, scale, and the science of placing ads where they will have the biggest impact.

The newspapers have an advantage when it comes to site quality, experts say. When marketers buy ads from the major portals, they often don’t know precisely where their ads will seem. In contrast, quadrantOne will show advertisers precisely where on its network an ad…

Orginal post by Top Tech News