Yahoo has put a lot behind its APT ad platform, which is designed to streamline the buying process. But so far, the new tool hasn't exactly impressed advertisers.

According to a story in MediaWeek, most buyers expressed doubt about the ability of Yahoo to streamline the buying process. Yahoo has hoped to make national newspaper buys more efficient for advertisers by allowing them to run campaigns across a range of publishers from a centralized interface. But the new program is also failing to inspire excitement among publishers, which Yahoo needs to build out inventory for APT.

But beyond the perceived shortcomings of Yahoo's APT system is the simple fact that both Microsoft and Google have similar offerings. Yahoo has made a point of locking up commitments from newspaper publishers, but both Google and Microsoft seem to have better captured the attention of publishers and media buyers, which means that even if Yahoo's offering is a leap forward in terms of technology it will still have to win a public relations battle.