Yahoo Messenger shows ads on its buddy list window, but the Internet pioneer is testing them in the instant-messaging chat windows as well.
The ads are part of a test that began in August and ends in December, Yahoo said in a statement. One example ZDNet Asia's sister site CNET News.com saw, shows an ad for MasterCard.
Yahoo laid off 1,520 employees last week and is in the midst of a review of all its business units to see which should be preserved. The company is under fierce financial pressure that only got worse with the recession and increasingly gloomy forecasts for online advertising.
Google shows ads in Gmail that are selected on the basis of e-mail content, but the Yahoo IM ads aren't selected on the basis of context, Yahoo said.
"The ad shows at most once per day per user and scrolls away" as an IM conversation continues, Yahoo said. "Right now the ads are being tested in versions of Yahoo Messenger 7.0 and above."
This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.com.
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