Yahoo Buzz, the Digg competitor we uncovered last month, has Web publishers giddy over traffic binges. Us Weekly, Salon and Michael Arrington's TechCrunch all report that when Yahoo Buzz put links to their sites on Yahoo's homepage, they posted record traffic days. "It's clear that a link from Yahoo.com blows away anything Digg or any other competitor can offer," Arrington writes on TechCrunch. "That will keep the Buzz publishers, who must be invited into the service, paying attention." And paying for traffic, according to Yahoo's plan.

The payola is indirect. Yahoo's intention with Buzz is to lure publishers into its advertising network. Publishers will give up part of their ad inventory, as well as a cut of sales, to Yahoo. Yahoo's willing to turn on the traffic firehose, but only if publishers let it set up buckets at the other end. Great for Yahoo, great for publishers. But one wonders if anyone has thought about Yahoo's users in this whole pageview-padding scheme. Sure, they'll get to vote on stories — but only if they're on a site in bed with Yahoo.

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