Yahoo!Xtra

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Yahoo!Xtra

Type	Public
Founded	2007
Headquarters	Auckland, New Zealand
Industry	Media
Products	yahooxtra.co.nz
Employees	30+ in Auckland 10 in Sydney
Website	Yahoo!Xtra Company Info

Yahoo!Xtra is a a new joint venture media company from Yahoo!7 and Telecom New Zealand. Yahoo!7 holds a 51 per cent stake in the company and Telecom holds 49 per cent.

1 XtraMSN
2 2007 changes
3 Yahoo!Xtra's key people
4 Notes and references
5 External links

[edit] XtraMSN

Telecom launched internet service provider Xtra and xtra.co.nz in 1996, and still today it is one of New Zealand's leading ISP's. In 2001 xtra.co.nz partnered with MSN (XtraMSN) and in 2006 for the first time XtraMSN received over 100 million total page impressions in a single month. Visitor numbers to XtraMSN grew by 45 percent in its last two years and the website attracted more than 3 million unique browsers per month.^[1]

[edit] 2007 changes

From 1 March 2007, the six-year-old Telecom and Microsoft joint venture was no longer, with the users invited to go to either YahooXtra.co.nz or Msn.co.nz. Telecom had made a new agreement, merging with Australia's Yahoo!7 - a joint company between the Seven Network and Yahoo! Inc. - to form Yahoo!Xtra.

Telecom is understood to be leaving the content management of its new joint venture to Yahoo7, maintaining just a skeleton editorial staff to manage local news, sport and entertainment content, but increasing portal staff levels overall.^[2] Telecom said it had boosted the organisation from 20 staff to over 30 employees in Auckland and 10 based in Sydney.^[3].

[edit] Yahoo!Xtra's key people

The make-up of the Yahoo!Xtra's board, to be chaired by Yahoo!7 CEO Ian Smith, was announced 28 February 2007. Joining Mr Smith on the Yahoo!Xtra board are:

• Kevin Kenrick, Telecom COO, Consumer

• Mark Verbiest, Telecom Group General Counsel

• Rod Snodgrass, Telecom GM, Group Strategy and Development

• Rohan Lund, Seven Network Director of Digital Media and Strategic Investments

• David Gowdey, Yahoo! Director Corporate Development South Asia.

The appointment of a permanent Auckland-based CEO is expected to be announced in mid-March 2007, along with further senior management appointments. Tom Osborne, formerly of Colenso BBDO in Auckland, is Yahoo!Xtra’s National Sales Director.