This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your payments and other updates from the YBN team.

Editorial

You may have noticed that we recently rolled out a modified version of the Yardbarker homepage. There is now a center column on the page devoted exclusively to video, and "The Backyard" has been expanded out into the right column. You may notice more slight improvements to come in the near future, but for the time being we welcome your feedback on the changes.

Product

In the last few weeks we've upgraded some of our technical infrastructure to provide a better and more secure experience for our users. If anyone notices unusual/broken functionality, please report it to bugs@yardbarker.com

Sales

This month we have premium campaigns running in several categories in the YBN as certain sports wind down and others get started. With the end of college basketball season, there are still campaigns from the United States Marine Corps, State Farm, and Adidas running early in April. Also, ongoing campaigns from Chevy Silverado, Force Factor, and MillerCoors remain active, so be on the lookout for those as well. With the start of baseball season, we have new campaigns kicking off from AXE, Chevy, Subway, Burger King, and Weight Watchers, so expect to see ads from those advertisers. As always, feel free to email sales@yardbarker.com with any questions.

Payments

Payments for January should have gone out during the last week of March, with several days delay expected for wire payments. If you haven't provided payment information, or if you believe you should have been paid out but have not yet received payment, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

Will

This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your payments and other updates from the YBN team.

Editorial

In the coming weeks, you'll notice some minor changes to the Yardbarker homepage, most notably in regard to video content. Video has been a part of the Yardbarker experience for some time, and now it's getting its own section. We're hoping that finding interesting video content on Yardbarker will be a little bit easier with the new design but the overall experience, as well as the type of videos that we like to feature, will largely be the same.

Sales

Coming up in March we'll have premium campaigns running in several areas across the YBN.

With March Madness kicking off midway into the month, be on the lookout for campaigns from the US Marines, Pizza Hut, and Tabasco. Also, we have multi-sport campaigns from Panasonic Viera, Force Factor, and MillerCoors slated. Elsewhere, the Chevy Silverado and Sprint campaigns you may have seen in February will again be live in March, so be on the lookout for those as well. And as always, feel free to email sales@yardbarker.com with any questions.

Payment

Payments for December should have been issued on 2/27, or within a day or two of that date. If you haven’t provided payment information, or if you believe you should have been paid but have not yet received payment, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

Some of you may have noticed that Doubleclick Network Builder (DNB) has not reported payment details or impression reports for February 29 and March 1. We’ve alerted Google of the delay, and they’ve reported that they are addressing the issue, which seems to be related to the leap year and the extra day in February. Don’t worry, though—your impressions are still being recorded.

Will

This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your payments and other updates from the YBN team.

Editorial

If you haven’t already, check out our editorial guide for tips on how you can make the most of Yardbarker’s syndication opportunities.

Want more promotion?

Use "Sentence case" capitalization when writing headlines. In the near future, MSN.com will unveil Yardbarker-powered local feeds. For a headline to be eligible to appear in these feeds, MSN requires that it be written using "sentence case" capitalization. What is "sentence case" capitalization? The term "Sentence case" capitalization refers to the capitalization strategy employed when writing your normal, everyday sentence. Proper names and the first word of every headline are capitalized. All other words begin with a lower case letter. Here are two examples.

All Caps Headline

Watch Blake Griffin Dunk On Opposing Center

Sentence case capitalization

Watch Blake Griffin dunk on opposing center

The headline that uses "sentence case" capitalization will receive a higher score in our feed algorithms, and subsequently, more promotion in various automated feeds.

Sales

This month we have premium campaigns running in several categories in the YBN. With the Super Bowl we have new campaigns from Burger King and Chevy Silvarado. Meanwhile, be on the look-out for a few new ad campaigns from Coors and Miller Light. Finally, there will a Golf Channel campaign running in the second half of the month that includes both content specific and YBN wide placements. As always, feel free to email sales@yardbarker.com with any questions.

Payment

PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT PAYMENT NOTICE: notices were sent last month to publishers with outstanding balances of over nine months. This will be the final notice to those same publishers to get their payment information to us ASAP so we can submit it to Fox Accounts Payable. Those publishers with outstanding balances that do send their payment information in soon risk losing the amount owed to them. If you have questions regarding this issue, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

Payments for November earnings should have been paid out during the last week of January. If you haven’t provided your payment information, or if you believe you should be paid but you have not yet received payment, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

Will

Happy new year! This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your payments and other updates from the YBN team.

Editorial

If you haven’t already, check out our editorial guide for tips on how you can make the most of Yardbarker’s syndication opportunities.

Sales

With the end of the NFL and college football regular season, a number of long-running campaign came to end last month. However, continue to look for campaigns from GMC, Visa, and Buick as well as a new campaign from Coors Light timed for the NFL Playoffs. As always, please email sales@yardbarker.com if you have any questions.

Payment

Payments for October earnings should have been paid out at the beginning of this month. If you haven’t provided your payment information, or if you believe you should be paid but you have not yet received payment, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

Another note about payment: notices were sent last month to publishers with outstanding balances of over nine months. Another final notice will be sent, along with this reminder, to those same publishers to get their payment information to us so we can submit it to Fox Accounts Payable. Those publishers with outstanding balances that do send their payment information in soon risk losing the amount owed to them. If you have questions regarding this issue, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com

Will

This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your payments and other updates from the YBN team.

Introduction

In November, we welcomed our new managing editor, Doug Hammond, to the Yardbarker team. Doug can be reached at doug@yardbarker.com, so please email him with any editorial concerns you may have. Remember, all of our editors can always be reached at pitch@yardbarker.com as well.

Sales

This month we have premium campaigns running in several categories in the YBN. With the NFL and College regular seasons coming down to the final month, continue to be on the lookout for campaign from Sprint, Chevy, Ford, GMC, and Dr Pepper. Meanwhile, we will have new campaigns from Nike and Fox Home Entertainment. As always, feel free to email sales@yardbarker.com with any questions.

Payment

Payments for September earnings are scheduled to be direct-deposited (for U.S. publishers) or wired (for non-U.S. publishers) at the end of November for those publishers who have provided their payment information. If you haven’t provided your payment information, or if you believe you should be paid but you do not receive payment by 12/7, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com

-Will

This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your YBN payments and other updates from the YBN team.

Sales

There will be a number of premium campaigns running across several YBN categories in November. Be on the lookout for new deals from Ford, School of the Legends, and Fox/MSN. Meanwhile, campaigns from Chevy, Sprint, Nissan, and All State that have been in place for the last few months will continue into November so you should continue to see ads from those companies as well. As always, please feel free to email sales@yardbarker.com with any questions.

Editorial

If you haven't already, check out our editorial guide for tips on how you can make the most of Yardbarker's syndication opportunities.

Payment

Payments for August earnings are scheduled to be direct-deposited (for U.S. publishers) or wired (for non-U.S. publishers) at the end of October for those publishers who have provided their payment information. If you haven’t provided your payment information, or if you believe you should be paid but you do not receive payment by 11/7, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com

-Will

This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your YBN payments and other updates from the YBN team.

As you may know, Alana sent the newsletter in the past, but has moved on to another opportunity. We miss her here at Yardbarker and wish her the best of luck. For those of you who have sent messages to Alana's email address, please note that we are checking those regularly and attempting to cover her duties through this transition. Thanks for your patience.

Sales

This month we have premium campaigns running in several categories in the YBN. With the beginning of the NFL season we have new campaigns from Sprint, Hewlett Packard, Chevy, and Best Buy that include both content specific and YBN wide placements. On the college football front, we have new deals with GMC, All State, and Nissan so you may see ads from those advertisers as well. And rounding it out, we still have campaigns from Dr. Pepper, Miller Coors, and Ford that will continue to run through October. As always, feel free to email sales@yardbarker.com with any questions.

Mobile Apps

Have you seen Yardbarker's new mobile apps? If not, you should check them out. They're available for the iPhone, iPad and Android. We'd also like to introduce you to the developers, Notice Software. They create apps for blogs like yours. You can get free mobile apps for your blog with their product Blog Rocket, which offers ad revenue sharing.

Payments

Payments for July earnings are scheduled to be direct-deposited (for U.S. publishers) or wired (for non-U.S. publishers) at the end of September for those publishers who have provided their payment information. If you haven't provided your payment information, or if you believe you should be paid but you do not receive payment by 10/6, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

- Will

This is the monthly newsletter sent to all YBN publishers. I'm sending the September newsletter a few days early because this is actually my last week at Yardbarker before I move on to another opportunity outside of the sports world. Please see below for more information.

Sales

This month we have a number of premium campaigns ramping up in several categories across the Yardbarker Network in anticipation of the NFL and College football seasons, as well as the MLB stretch drive. You may see ads for Sprint, Ford, GMC, Chrysler, PSP and FOXSports, among others. We are also in the process of taking FOXSports Digital sponsorship packages to market, and each one contains a different Yardbarker Network extension. So be on the lookout for these advertising programs as well. And as always, if you are working on any new content or features, please keep us posted so we can include these in our conversations with clients. Feel free to email our new Director of Business Development Nick Freeman at sales@yardbarker.com to discuss in more detail.

The 'Backyard Best of the Web' module

We launched a new module last week that lives on the bottom of most FOXSports article pages (you can see it at the bottom of this FOXSports article for example, or you can check out a screenshot below). We're excited to have another vehicle we can use to drive traffic to YBN publishers. The module is programmed by our editors at Pitch@yardbarker.com, so please check out these notes about special editorial promotion and effective pitch emails if you would like an article of yours to be considered. And if you are interested in placing this module on your own site, the YB team may make that available in the coming months, so please stay tuned to these newsletters for more information.

Payments

Payments for June earnings are scheduled to be direct-deposited (for U.S. publishers) or wired (for non-U.S. publishers) at the end of August for those publishers who have provided their payment information. If you haven't provided your payment information, or if you believe you should be paid but you do not receive payment by 9/6, please contact publishers@yardbarker.com.

Alana's transition

I've had an amazing experience at Yardbarker these past three years and I've especially enjoyed getting to know all the talented publishers we have in the YBN. I'll miss working with all of you, but please keep in touch -- you can find me on Twitter (@alana_g) or you can follow my Yardbarker blog Alana G which I plan to continue updating. A huge thank you to everyone for making my time here so much fun!

The YB team will keep you in the loop about any personnel updates. In the meantime, any messages that you would have sent to me can be sent to Pitch@yardbarker.com, which goes to Steve and the rest of the editorial team plus Jeff and Will from the YBN team. They will be able to address your issue or forward it to the appropriate member of the YB team.

If you have any questions about the transition, feel free to contact our General Manager Pete Vlastelica at pete@yardbarker.com.

-Alana

We launched a new module last week that lives on the bottom of most FOXSports article pages. You can see it at the bottom of this FOXSports article for example, or you can check out a screenshot here:



We're excited to have another vehicle we can use to drive traffic to YBN publishers. The module is programmed by our editors at Pitch@yardbarker.com, so please check out these notes about special editorial promotion and effective pitch emails if you would like an article of yours to be considered. And if you are interested in placing this module on your own site, the YB team may make that available in the coming months, so please stay tuned to the monthly YBN newsletters for more information.

-Alana

This is the monthly newsletter sent to publishers in the YBN. Below you will find information about your YBN payments and other updates from the YB team.

Payments
If you have a question about payment, please do not contact me -- all questions should be directed to publishers@yardbarker.com. Payments for May earnings were direct-deposited to U.S. publishers and wired to non-U.S. publishers last week, provided we have your payment information on file.

Sales
This month we have premium campaigns running in several categories in the YBN. You may see ads for Best Buy, Sprint, and FOXSports, among others.

Versus video player
Unfortunately Versus has discontinued the video player that a small number of our publishers had installed on their sites. The player is no longer functional, so if you have it on your site, you will want to remove the code for that player at your convenience. If you never installed the Versus video player, you do not need to do anything. For those of you who are interested in having a video player, we are exploring options for alternate video solutions -- we'll keep everyone posted, so stay tuned to the monthly newsletters.

Questus audience profiler survey
As a reminder, FOXSports has started surveying visitors across all the sites that they represent, including Yardbarker Network sites. The surveys intercept site visitors at a low frequency to capture data that is critical in influencing media buyers’ decisions about which sites to work with. For more information, you can read the note in June's YBN newsletter. If you'd like to opt out of this program, please email your request to me at alana@yardbarker.com along with the URL of your site(s).