Googlepaper...

Something we've spoken about on the blog - but Google's reach continues expanding.

Adwords and Adsense are massive revenue generating machines (~10billion annually), but Google started asking itself a while back...'why can't we use this same advertising network, syndication technology, and ranking algorithms - and apply this fancy competitive advantage to other ad media.' That's why you see ads next to the personal messages you read in gmail.

And that's why Google has made a couple of big moves to buy some radio stations and begin testing its technologies to place radio advertisements, in contextually relevant places. So you're listening to a spot about home gardening - why do you have to listen to car ads? or beer commercials? With Google managing the ads that are played for you, you're far more likely to hear a commercial from a local horticulturalist or botanical garden...or at least that's the billion dollar idea.

Well, this NYT piece discusses Google's latest foray...using its advertisement syndication for newspaper advertising. Ever tried putting an ad in a newspaper? Well, I just did - and it was a real pain in my bum. Sure, belo interactive had a nice little system for placing my ad for an estate sale in the Dallas Morning News. But wouldn't it have been nice if I could just check a box somewhere in my Google Adwords account - and they could have taken care of the mess for me...? And if it's easier for me, imagine how exciting it is for those newspapers. Gone are the days when they'll have to scramble to fill 'dead inventory' - pretty soon, they'll just plop in some Google ads to fill up the blank space. And nice old Google will only take a 20% cut.

As I've said before, I'm one of the world's greatest google jock sniffers, yet at the same time, I am deathly afraid of them.