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AT&T's fingers do the walking to a new online deal

Superpages is out and Yellowpages is in for Microsoft's properties as the company swapped listings services.

AT&T picked up a prime bit of online real estate. Their Yellowpages listings will have a place on Microsoft's websites in the coming weeks.

As a competitive move, AT&T's gain is Idearc's loss. Idearc operates Superpages and competes with Yellowpages and similar sites for for local business listings.

Reuters noted the inking of the deal between Microsoft and Yellowpages, with an undetermined start date listed for early April. The deal provides AT&T with another selling point for its advertisers.

Through placement on sites like Microsoft's Live Search and Live Search Maps, AT&T can tout exposure for advertiser listings throughout Microsoft's local search results. Such local online advertising should prove lucrative in the coming years, as a recent study by Marchex predicted local online ad business to grow to $20 billion by 2011.