To many, its been obvious that most of the “old media” outlets (print magazines, newspapers, etc) are attempting to create an online presence to compliment their print product. Instead of remembering what their readers want, they focus on ad revenue and page views to keep their shareholders happy. It’s been discouraging to watch content take a back seat to the transmission of quality information.

And while this may not have happened overnight, today it became obvious that Yahoo! (who we’d consider new media) is up to the same tricks.

Case in point, this Reuters article on Yahoo!, (google cache link to article, sadly sans the ads I was referencing) is discussing the new Verizon Wireless cell phones that are slated to compete with the iPhone this holiday season. Accompanying the article is a 200 x 139 pixel image of the new cell phones, tucked away in the far corner of the page. Directly inline with the article is an advertisement. A whopping 300 x 250 of page real estate. Further down, yet another at 350 x 140 ad, not to mention the obligatory stock chart and related news stories links.

In this case, its safe to say the reader would like to take a closer look at the phones being discussed, yet the image ad alone out weighs the article’s image by nearly 37%! Certainly, generating ad revenue is a necessary component to online publications, but at what cost?

With this in mind, we truly hope the ads seen on sho’fr are related and unobtrusive. Leave your thoughts here if we can do anything to improve.