Jenstar - 5:42 am on Aug 3, 2005 (gmt 0)

I have been one of the small handful of publishers beta testing the YPN, and it was worth the wait :)

YPN is very similar to AdSense in a lot of ways, but it has some quirks to work out during the beta period. It has ten ad unit sizes (same as AdSense) and similar reporting features in the control panel, including downloadable reports.

You can also block advertisers, customize channels for tracking (although only 50 of them), and create ad unit styles for display.

Ad units look similar to AdSense, although the text is larger, and hence shows fewer ads. For example, the large rectangle only shows three ads with YPN instead of four.

A couple cool features - you can transfer your earnings to your Yahoo Search Marketing account.

The home page of the control panel features your total daily earnings, and it tells you what time your earning stats were last updated, which is great for stat junkies.

Now, the question everyone wants to know. YPN is open for beta testing by invite only. But you can apply to become a YPN beta tester [advision.webevents.yahoo.com] and hopefully be one of the ones invited:

If you're interested in being considered for the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, please enter your information below. Participants of the program must be a resident of the U.S., with valid U.S. Social Security number or Tax ID.

I would assume they plan to open it to those who don't meet the above criteria when it launches out of beta by the end of this year.