When Google saw the breadth of their domain (they wept)

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

Humour me for a second while I bastardise a classical quote “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer” – substitute GOOGLE for ALEXANDER and put the WORLD in context as NEW MEDIA and you will understand why there is a lot of fuss at the moment in the old media world trying to understand exactly what Google is planning next!

Several media companies including ITV, whose chairman Michael Grade has in the past asked for greater regulation of Google, all look upon Google entering their world with a great deal of apprehension.

So too does the Newspaper world and it was reported in a couple of last week’s papers that “New media giant Google is now looking to old media to expand its advertising empire and is already in talks with several UK newspapers to sell print advertising space to its online clients”

Google Print Ads as it is called is not entirely new, it is already in use in the US with 100’s of newspapers but the fact that it is coming to Europe via the UK first, it would seem, will send shivers down many a spine.

Google Print Ads work by acting as an intermediate or agent between its clients who already use Google AdWords, and the print industry. While not entirely auction-based, the service allows customers to suggest a price for one or more advertisements which is then reviewed and approved by publishers. In return for acting as a middleman, Google receives revenue for every single deal made through Print Ads.

We have long said that it makes sense for Google to do similar with digital out of home (and predict that they will shortly) – DOOH has similarities with pay per click and print of course – and every screen is literally just an IP address (albeit in a location specific venue that needs to be taken into consideration).


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