• by Masha Geller , November 12, 2002

When the Excite Network launched a brand new portal two weeks ago, very few people in the industry paid any attention, even though the portal promised to deliver full functionality, fast pages, a great privacy policy and -- most importantly -- not a single banner or pop-up advertisement throughout the entire site.

Yesterday, when the same company released an announcement (on the Yahoo! newswires of all places) under the heading of “Yahoo! Is Toast” – heads turned. And rightly so.

The portal in question is MyWay.com, and they’ve launched a fully-integrated multimedia ad campaign, utilizing the line "Yahoo! is Toast," that will consist of extensive online media, spot radio in 38 markets, print media and college marketing initiatives. The spots highlight the site's no-banner and no-pop-up ad policy, as well as My Way's claim that most of their pages load faster than the corresponding pages on Yahoo!

Should Yahoo! be worried? Yesterday’s announcement did get this cynic and formerly loyal Yahoo! user to spend almost an hour playing around on the My Way site, personalizing the homepage and eventually setting it as the start page of my Internet Explorer. All without being bothered by a single pop-up -- a very nice experience, I must say.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one to switch and now everyone is asking the same question – “If they’re not taking conventional ads, how will they ever make any money?” My Ways’ answer – paid listings. According to the original announcement, the company hopes to be profitable in its first month of operation, deriving revenue through sponsored listings, and eventually adding classified, real estate and travel listings.

Will My Way make it? Considering paid search is one of the more misunderstood concepts in all of online advertising today, I wouldn’t say Yahoo! has anything to worry about just yet. The good news is we won’t have to wait long to find out.