Boston.com Launches Virtual Bulletin Board

It would be a pity if The New York Times Co.’s Boston Globe were shut down, because its Boston.com site continues to innovate with local online advertising capabilities. Today, the company’s YourTown hyperlocal sites launched Flyerboards: a virtual bulletin board on which businesses can post “flyers” to advertise their services and events.

The technology behind Flyerboard, by New Haven-based PaperG, automatically converts images into flyers. What makes it different from other print conversion programs is that it also enables various Web 2.0 functionality, including e-mail sharing, social networking and online maps (although vendors like Travidia and HarvestInfo have been adding a host of advanced solutions to their own offerings).

Boston.com’s plans are to initially launch Flyerboard on Newton, Needham, Waltham and Wellesley. Other communities will eventually being added.

One touted advantage of the Flyerboard is that it can be sold on a self-serve basis. Alternatively, publishers can bundle Flyerboard sales with other sponsorships.

PaperG CEO Victor Wong tells us that more deals for the Flyerboard are set to be announced in coming weeks by several additional newspaper companies. “It is already live with 50 Web sites,” largely focused on the college market, he says. For those sites, Wong says it is “outperforming the clickthrough rates of banner ads and Google at a fraction of the cost.”