Ads in Google News? Cue Newspaper Industry Outcry in 3… 2… 1
by John Paczkowski
Posted on February 26, 2009 at 9:13 AM PT
When [Google CEO] Eric Schmidt says he worries about the newspaper industry, it’s crocodile tears.
– Brian Tierney, chief executive of Philadelphia Media Holdings, which own The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News
Leave it to Google to find a bit of meat on the revenue-starved bones of the newspaper industry. On Wednesday, the company extended its AdWords program to Google News, serving up text ads alongside news searches in much the same way it does regular Google searches. Search for news about, say, mesothelioma, and you’ll be shown the broad spectrum of ads touting mesothelioma legal services (click on image below).
Google (GOOG) announced the move in a post to its official blog:
In recent months we’ve been experimenting with a variety of different formats, like overlay ads on embedded videos from partners like the AP. We’ve always said that we’d unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we’ll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too.”
The addition of AdWords to Google News was inevitable as the economy continues to weaken and Google looks to expand its revenue streams. But so too may be the outcry over the move. In 2006, the World Association of Newspapers demanded that Google News stop indexing its member sites on the grounds that Google was profiting from the use of their copyright material. Agence France-Presse sued Google for the same thing in 2005. At the time, Google News carried no advertisements and hence, no obvious revenue stream. What will they, and other members of the fast-deteriorating newspaper industry say now that it does? As Searchblog’s John Battelle quips, “This one will kick up some dust.”
Comments
google is an ad company under the guise of search
anyone not clear on that?
ask yahoo, microsoft, and certainly the newspaper companies
google is an ad company
that’s its only mission: serve ads as many places as possible
no matter what google says or its pr machine
google exists to sell ads
repeat after me, google is an ad company…
Posted by Sam Harrison at February 26th, 2009 at 11:35 amNotice the HUGE typo in the screenshot?
“Former Minnesota LEGISLATURE Dies of Mesothelioma”
What a bunch of morons. Google needs to kick out asbestos lawyer news sites.
Posted by Theodore Stevens at February 26th, 2009 at 12:51 pmRegarding Google’s apparently altruistic advice to Newspaper Execs, in my opinion actually means ‘you need me to supply you with Google ads within your format in order to survive!’
This reminds me of Vito Corleone assuring all the bosses he wouldn’t be the one to break the peace before Michael then wipes them all out during the christening of his Godson.
As a ‘customer’, I still yearn for decent content and though I would like my ‘news and sophisticated opinions’ delivered to me in a much more portable way, I hope you don’t take your pants down any further.
In my humble view you need to start selling your products as an elegant ’service’ instead. Don’t ruin the brand by allowing get rich ads on your business pages from any third party and by all means charge me a ‘membership’ for being allowed the benefit of commenting, downloading articles to readers, email etc. and then send me a nice monthly mag to cheer me up too. Maybe you could turn the tables and filter the noise from Twitter etc. too and just give me the best ones and comment with your experience over the top of the amateur sea of opinion. I’d pay more for all that than I currently do over the counter.
BUT asking me to ’subscribe’ for just your news won’t do it I’m afraid…. it needs to be a lot more sexy, and then you’ve got me!
Lastly, when you are in the depths of despair, just remember, if I own a wall and invite everyone and anyone to come and write graffiti on it, then what have I actually got? Initially I may have an interesting collage that everyone wants to look at, but at the end of the day, when people have moved on back to quality content, in reality I just have a messy wall. Who’d want to advertise next to that?
For more about this which I wrote some time ago in the debate … http://tinyurl.com/dn7rmg
Posted by Jan Simmonds at April 8th, 2009 at 9:51 am