On Monday, Advance Internet is announcing its new partnership with Microsoft, an agreement that tells us a few things about the emerging, post-recession marketplace.

Advance Publications, Inc., isn't a well-known name outside the industry. Yet, it's one of the major media companies in the country, encompassing through Conde Nast more than 20 top-drawer magazines (The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, Gourmet+), the apparently immortal Sunday Parade, the 42-city strong American City Business Journals group and cable interests, in addition to its 30 newspapers. A very private company, Forbes ranks it 41st among private companies in the country, taking in more than $7.5 billion.

So when Advance partners its online newspaper ad business with Microsoft -- when it zags when many of its peers are zigging -- it's worth taking note. The new partnership covers all the Advance newspaper properties, from Newark and Jersey City to Cleveland to Michigan to Portland, Oregon, with many in between. Advance Internet operates as a division, separate from the company's  newspapers, but is set up to leverage all those papers' content and sales forces.  

The new partnership -- already launched in part -- parallels the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, but differs from it in one important respect.

What's the same:

• Advance Internet's own salespeople, and then the vanguard of its newspaper sales reps, will sell into the Microsoft Media Network, encompassing all the Microsoft sites. So, in essence, Advance will greatly expand what its sales teams can offer local advertisers. The idea and the centerpiece of the deal for Advance: the ability to offer local businesses additional marketing solutions, multiplying Advance's sales.
• Advance Internet will use the capabilities of the Microsoft ad technologies -- among them behavioral targeting (BT) and re-messaging (following would-be customers as they move about the web)
• The deal connects Advance and Microsoft directly on paid search products. Microsoft will deliver its text ads both through its paid search and contextual-reading ad products. Microsoft paid search ads will replace Google paid search on Advance sites. 

The main difference: Advance Internet is maintaining its own ad platform, currently powered by 24/7 RealMedia, and integrating with Microsoft. Yahoo Newspaper Consortium members have fully adopted the Yahoo APT platform for their ad serving businesses, creating a closer, more exclusive relationship. "We wanted flexibility," Peter Weinberger, president of Advance Internet, tells me. Weinberger won't specify what parts of the deal involve exclusivity or the duration of the contract.