PointRoll Monday released its PaperBoy ad unit, a banner ad that expands to display product and sales information right on the ad. Set to appear on the Web sites of parent company Gannett--as well as
sites owned by Knight-Ridder, the Tribune Company, and Yahoo!--PaperBoy lets advertisers around the nation upload newspaper circulars directly into the ad format. The hope is that PaperBoy will help
local newspapers better compete against online megaliths like Google and eBay, which increasingly sap the critical revenue that classifieds generate for the papers.
--Gavin O'Malley
