Harvard and Yale students to expand PaperG, a local ad network

Ian Lamont — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:10:49 -0700

A group of Harvard and Yale undergraduates is expanding PaperG, an online ad service focused on local advertising. A report in the Harvard Crimson says the company's main product, the Flyerboard widget, is being expanded to "all the major websites" in the Boston area and will appear in other locations outside of Boston and New Haven, Connecticut. The widget lets publishers post display ads which expand to larger flyer-sized overlays when readers click on them.

PaperG CEO Victor Wong tells The Industry Standard that he hopes to expand the service to "most metropolitan areas" by the fourth quarter of this year.

Local ad networks are not new, but many are focused on serving larger national advertisers who want to reach local audiences or certain types of websites, such as those owned by television stations.

PaperG is targeting small, local businesses. The signup page stresses the local angle and ease of use, claiming that "anything you might print on paper can be easily converted into an online ad." Wong adds that it's a "simple" time-based listing arrangement. Affiliated publishers include a small group of news websites in Boston and New Haven, including Boston.com, the website of The Boston Globe. Wong says the company aims to have advertising appearing in local search engines by the end of this year.

PaperG won $5,000 in seed money from the Harvard i3 Innovation Challenge. It currently has six employees, but The Crimson reports that the older employees of PaperG who are graduating from college this year will soon start working on the network full-time.

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