Yahoo!Xtra was a New Zealand

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

that existed under that name from 2007 to 2011. It was a joint venture between

Yahoo!7 Yahoo! Australia (formerly Yahoo7 between 2006 and 2018) is the Australian subsidiary of global internet company Yahoo! Originally a 50/50 joint venture between Yahoo! and Seven West Media, it has been a 100% subsidiary of Verizon Media since ...

and

Telecom New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digital division) ICT services to businesses. It was know ...

(now Spark). Yahoo!7 held a 51 percent stake in the company and Telecom NZ held 49 percent. Because Yahoo!7 is a 50/50 venture,

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

proper was therefore a 25.5% owner of Yahoo!Xtra. Telecom announced in April 2011 that it had sold its share to Yahoo!7 and Yahoo!Xtra was rebranded as Yahoo! New Zealand.

XtraMSN

Telecom launched

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

Xtra Extra or Xtra may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''The Extra'' (1962 film), a Mexican film * ''The Extra'' (2005 film), an Australian film Literature * ''Extra'' (newspaper), a Brazilian newspaper * '' Extra!'', an American m ...

in 1996, which was New Zealand's largest ISP (). In 2001 Telecom partnered with

MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

to create the web portal XtraMSN, which by 2006 was receiving over 100 million total page impressions per 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.

Move to Yahoo

In December 2006, Telecom made a new agreement, founding a joint venture with

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

's Yahoo!7 – itself a joint company between the

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...

and Yahoo! – to form Yahoo!Xtra. The six-year-old Telecom and Microsoft portal ended on 1 March 2007, with the users invited to go to either YahooXtra.co.nz or Msn.co.nz. Telecom reportedly left the content management of the portal to Yahoo!, who operate an

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

-based office consisting of Sales, Marketing, Ad Operations, Production and Finance Departments. The Editorial team manages local news, sport and entertainment content. When Telecom sold out in 2011, Yahoo!Xtra staff transferred to Yahoo! New Zealand. Telecom noted that Yahoo!7 would continue to support Telecom's broadband customers. Yahoo! continued to provide Telecom's email service, which came under criticism in early 2013 following a spam and phishing attack described as the biggest to have ever hit New Zealand. Telecom automatically reset thousands of users' passwords. In April, Telecom announced that despite the issue, it would keep Yahoo! on as an email provider.

Mail migration to Spark

Between September 2016 and April 2017 Spark New Zealand migrated Xtra Mail from Yahoo! to spark.co.nz. Spark partnered with New Zealand email provider SMX.

Promotion

Yahoo!Xtra's 'X meets Y' promotion at launch featured a television commercial with

Regina Spektor Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (russian: Регинa Ильинична Спектор, ; born February 18, 1980) is a Russian–born American singer, songwriter, and pianist. After self-releasing her first three records and gaining popularity in ...

's song "

Fidelity Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of ''fealty''. Both derive from the Latin word ''fidēlis'', meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London f ...

" playing whilst a young couple undertake in a lingering kiss. This helped throw the anti-folk star under the spotlight in the New Zealand music scene, "Fidelity" becoming a hit single and one of Spektor's most successful tracks.Yahoo!Xtra Music
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References

External links

* {{Yahoo! Inc. Internet in New Zealand