Ninety-four newspapers joined the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium bringing their total to 779 and slightly over 40% of the Sunday newspaper circulation.

With the announcement of their targeted advertising network in February and the more recent announcement of their partnership with ShopLocal, it looks like Yahoo has figured out how to become even more relevant to their partners.

Here is a comment on upcoming training by Lem Lloyd, Yahoo vice president of the newspaper consortium.

We’re now in the midst of a comprehensive sales training program designed to help the consortium’s 6,000-plus sales representatives to take advantage of the new online tools they’ll soon be receiving from Yahoo.

That’s a lot of training to be done with sales reps that at all levels and newspapers at different points in their interactive endeavors. I’ve seen firsthand how hard training is to get to stick especially when the majority of sales reps aren’t equipped to sell more than print.

How will Yahoo’s products get integrated with existing online initiatives? Does one suffer because of the other?

I mention a lot about the need for newspapers to figure out a way to extend their brand. Joining the Yahoo Consortium is a proven way to get that done. Just in recruitment alone I’ve heard newspapers discussing the incremental and easily generated revenue that HotJobs extension has afforded them.

Imagine the revenue that is going to come from national advertisers using the new ad network to deeply target in newspaper markets and the ability for newspapers to sell local advertisers Yahoo inventory.

I was once a non-believer, but….

After talking with several trusted newspaper colleagues I have become a believer. My original fear stemmed from the possibility of Yahoo coming into the market, gathering really valuable market intelligence and walking away in 10 years. I now see the partnership past the current length of the contract and being a catalyst to drive change in the local market.

I have one remaining question with a rather obvious answer.

Will Yahoo provide a federated search model for newspapers?

I’m also interested in how the recent SearchMonkey launch will be a part of the Consortium. Will their be a concerted effort by the group to use the tool to better the user experience and drive consumers to advertisers.

The Consortium is in good hands because I know there is a group of newspaper industry Superheroes in Crested Butte, Co thinking about this and more everyday.