Google and Verizon: Best Enemiends Forever
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 22, 2008 at 11:58 AM PT
Over time, Google will make more money from mobile advertising.”
The prospect of a mobile revenue stream larger than the $16.6 billion in desktop revenues Google reported in 2007 has inspired the company to put its 700 MHz spectrum spat with Verizon behind it. And now the two companies are becoming fast frienemies … or is it enemiends?
Word on the street has it that Google and Verizon are close to inking a mobile search pact that would make Google (GOOG) the default search on Verizon devices and might someday put the ubiquitous Google search bar on the home screen of its phones. In return, Verizon (VZ) would share in the revenue generated by the targeted ads Google serves up in its search results.
That’s a compelling proposition because that revenue is likely to be substantial. According to comScore M:Metrics, just 16.7 million of the 240 million or so cellphone users in the U.S. use mobile search. The remaining 223 million apparently find the laughable and labyrinthine carrier-developed search solutions available to them too annoying to bother with. Put a Google search box on their phones’ home screens, though, and it would likely be a different story.
