Yet another tool for the little guy

Jeff Jarvis discusses how newspapers are pooling resources to take back advertising. Across the country, 130 papers will move to an auction-style Google model for their advertising. This offers big opportunity for local advertisers:

Newspapers are trying to hold onto local in this new ad universe. They are also hoping to grab new advertisers at a lower cost: The bet in hyperlocal is that the small advertisers who could never afford newspapers could now take advantage of ads that are affordable because they are highly targeted and have next-to-no cost of sale and production.

It just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper to compete with the big boys, doesn’t it? If I’m a specialty local retailer, I’m perfectly happy to let the Targets of the world take out high-cost four-color Sunday inserts. I’ll deliver a dirt-cheap, highly targeted text ad instead which delivers a far higher ROI.