GoogleAds posts
FeedPosted Aug 18th 2009 12:00PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Marketing and Advertising
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) will be bringing movie and television ads into those text advertising spots next to internet search results. That's right -- the unobtrusive but incredibly relevant text ads that have made Google tens of billions of dollars in recent years are going to become mixed with other types of search results from more than just one medium of content. Google has already delved into video content next to search text ads, and movie previews should be a great addition.
Google has been testing video ads next to its text ads since 2008, and it added unofficial product-demonstration clips into the mix quite a while ago. For example, search for "iPhone" on Google and you will see plenty of YouTube videos that come up in search results, many of which are complete product reviews and demonstrations of the best-selling smartphone.
Continue reading Google tests movie previews next to text search ads
Posted Jul 10th 2008 12:45PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Google (GOOG)

When Tom talked about
Google, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:
GOOG)
failure to properly monetize YouTube, he questioned if Google's purchase of the world's largest video-sharing site was a mistake. In relative terms, Google's use of stock to purchase YouTube was a short-term impact more than anything. But he's right -- YouTube still has not found a secret sauce to monetize the huge amount of video traffic being sent to and viewed from the site every second of the day.
What has taken Google
two years to figure out here? YouTube has been a playground for testing different online video monetization methods, but none of them have really worked. YouTube started out as a grassroots video-sharing site, and as its customer base has grown, it's one area where ads continually have been shunned by its viewers. So, Google may be giving up and going to a traditional method of selling advertising on YouTube: the pre-roll and post-roll ad video clip.
This model has been used on news websites and most other types of video sites with success. It's a model that works. Plug in a 10-second or 15-second video in front of (and following) a customer-requested video clip and that advertising model works. Publishers have to keep them short (10 seconds is optimal), of course. So far, Google has shunned this kind of traditional video advertising on YouTube. But, as the Wall Street Journal reported this week, it may be ready to forge ahead with this model. It needs to get a respectable amount of revenue from YouTube somehow, because now, it's not.
Posted Apr 8th 2008 9:20AM by Douglas McIntyre (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Launches, Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT)
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has come up with a new plan to make friends with developers. Software engineers who use the Google Apps Engine to build products will get free access to run their application developments in Google data centers. According to The Wall Street Journal :"Google will provide limited data storage, computing and network capacity as part of the App Engine test and eventually make available additional storage and network bandwidth to developers for a fee."
It is another clever move by the big search company. It encourages developers to align themselves with Google products and services and allows the company the chance to make money down the road. It also makes Google seem "progressive" in its relationships with outside software coders, a reputation that rival Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) does not share. Redmond still charges for most developers to use its services although its does provide some code to companies who want to build applications for Windows.
Google is also taking advantage of the fact that it has one of the largest , if not the largest, collections of servers in the world. Not all of the data and storage capacity on these machines is being used all of the time. What Google will eventually charge developers for is running on hardware the company has already paid for. That makes the project a very profitable business and helps the company diversify away from search revenue.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
Posted Dec 19th 2007 2:06PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO)
Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG) and
Yahoo! (NASDAQ:
YHOO) have been saying for years that the next frontier for internet-based advertising is the cellphone screen. With wireless handsets having high-speed data connections and really impressive (but small) screens, and with cellphones outselling PCs one would think both companies are right on the money. Not a quarterly conference call with Google can go by without CEO Eric Schmidt alluding to the mobile ad space as a whole new frontier for Google.
When a research firm like Gartner predicts $11 billion in industry revenue from mobile advertising in 2011, that is the kind of figure that makes many stand up and pay attention. But so far, mobile advertising reality is not turning out to be rosy as that. Mobile advertising is an industry worth under $1 billion in 2007; can it really skyrocket to over $11 billion in four years? Most likely, no.
A main reason for this is the
incredible complexity of mobile web browsing on the mainstream cellphone (lack of a keyboard, perhaps?). I'm not talking Palm Treos, iPhones and other muscular, do-it-all phones, but the kind the average joe carries in that front pants pocket. Do you know of many people who regularly access the web on their cellphone? Think about it for a second. According to Jupiter Research, only 16% of Americans regularly access the web on all those cellphones. What's going to get that figure up to 50%?
For one, a much less convoluted way for normal phones to hop on the web, making it as easy as web browsing on a PC. It's nowhere near that now, save for a handful of device categories like smartphones and the like. Think text messaging could be the answer? Will customers stand for being interrupted with advertising over text messaging? It's an opportunity that could launch a consumer revolt more than anything. What's left, then? Mobile advertising will get there and indeed win the day -- just not by 2011 and in the numbers predicted.
Posted Oct 10th 2007 5:51PM by Tom Barlow (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Launches, Google (GOOG), General Electric (GE), Walt Disney (DIS), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS)

Jesus, this is a good wine. There is a new line of wines from Israel targeted for American Christian wine drinkers,
The Grapes of Galilee. Grown by the Sea of Galilee and irrigated with water from the Jordon River, the $14 bottles of chardonnay, cab, and merlot are imported by Pini Haroz, who hopes the wines will find a home on Christmas tables.
Lenore Skenazy wrote about a new use for
Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG) ads. A publisher trying to choose between two titles for a new book bought two blocks of Google ads, each with a candidate name, and totaled the hits each received. Almost instant results, without focus groups, surveys, and interminable meetings.
This week's issue included AA's annual report on the leading media companies. Among the findings:
U.S. Media revenue ($285 billion) by sector --
- Cable systems & satellite: 29.4%
- Cable networks: 12.7%
- Broadcast TV: 11.9%
- Newspapers: 11.6%
- Magazines: 6.9%
- Internet: 6.8%
- Yellow pages: 4.7%
- Radio: 4%
The yellow pages took me by surprise. I don't even know where mine are.
Want to buy an ad on a television show? AA has a breakdown of cost per 30 seconds for each network show. For a spot during
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:
DIS)'s ABC show
Grey's Anatomy, you'll drop $419,000.
Desperate Housewives will set you back $270,000,
CBS Corporation (NYSE:
CBS)'s CSI $248,000. Bottom feeders can find bargains at
General Electric Company (NYSE:
GE)'s NBC show
Dateline ($28,000), CBS's
Crimetime Saturday ($49,000) and ABC's
Cavemen ($78,000).
Posted Jul 13th 2007 5:42PM by Kevin Kelly (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Marketing and Advertising
Google Inc. (Nasdaq:
GOOG) has dominated the internet advertising space for quite a while via
AdSense and
AdWords but judging from interpreting a recent news event,
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:
YHOO) is finally going to be able bring it on. Yesterday it was
announced that Yahoo! completed its purchase of
RightMedia, in complete, for another $650 million. Although Yahoo! has already been a part-owner in the company, and the news that the complete acquisition was to occur was known by the public, the completion is very significant for the future of the internet advertising space.
When I used to run my own website I was very in-touch with the recent additions to the advertising space. In my opinion, RightMedia has one of the most interesting and innovative models for both advertisers and publishers. Essentially, RightMedia has created an open marketplace for all parties involved in internet advertising. As we've all learned from
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:
EBAY), open marketplaces are much more interesting for everyone involved - the bidders clearly see what they are receiving and for what price while the sellers are able to maximize the amount paid for any item.
Continue reading Yahoo's acquisition is right
Posted May 1st 2006 9:08AM by Sarah Gilbert (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Newspapers, Google (GOOG)

As long as I've been surfing eBay, I've been in on the dirty little not-so-secret that many of you
share: typos are the way to go if you want to save money. There's even a
search
engine devoted to it.
I'm not the only former spelling bee champ exploiting the less fortoonat. Google
makes money on typos too, by selling ads that appear on sites like nyrimes.com, ebbay.com, and OPB.com. Google insists
that it's in the clear legally - after all, no one is confused, thinking that "OPB.com" really
is
Oregon Public Broadcasting's non-profit news site when it he arrives at the ad-filled site.
Sure. We know.
None of us are total, complete dolts, no matter how poor our spelling or slippery our keyboard. But what we
do
know is that this seems a bit underhanded. And profiting from that? Harvard researcher Ben Edelman says that seems to
fly in the face of their motto: "Do no evil," in
this Washington
Post article [registration required].
More evidence that Google's
the next
evil empire. Stay tuned...