Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too

IN many ways, Larry Page and Sergey Brin seem an unlikely pair to lead an advertising revolution. As Stanford graduate students sketching out the idea that became Google, the two software engineers sniffed in an academic paper that "advertising-funded search engines will inherently be biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers."

They softened that line a bit by the time they got around to pitching their business to venture capitalists, allowing that selling ads would be a handy safety net if their other, less distasteful ideas for generating revenue didn't pan out.

Google soared in popularity in its first years but had no meaningful revenue until the founders reluctantly fell on that safety net and started selling ads. Even then, they approached advertising with the mind-set of engineers: Ads would look more like fortune cookies than anything Madison Avenue would come up with.

As it turned out, the safety net was a trampoline. Those little ads - 12 word snippets of text, linked to topics that users are actually interested in - have turned Google into one of the biggest advertising vehicles the world has ever seen. This year, Google will sell $6.1 billion in ads, nearly double what it sold last year, according to Anthony Noto, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. That is more advertising than is sold by any newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network. By next year, Mr. Noto said, he expects Google to have advertising revenue of $9.5 billion. That would place it fourth among American media companies in total ad sales after Viacom, the News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company, but ahead of giants including NBC Universal and Time Warner.

If information was king in 80's and 90's we've learned that in the day of an avalanche of data that finding information is the king in the 21st century. Yahoo and company may have gotten this first but Google got it best and perhaps last. The time is also right because so many computer people don't want Microsoft or AOL to dominate the Internet and thus became early adopters for Google.. and the nerds told their friends who told their friends and so on and so on.

Google became successful because they had a better search engine.
If they contiue to "bias" it, they are fighting against not only their best interests and their success, but is certain to relegate them to also-ran status.
Already they have been caught shooting themselves in the foot. It's just a matter of time.

3 posted on 10/30/2005 8:14:37 AM PST by Publius6961 (Liberal level playing field: If the Islamics win we are their slaves..if we win they are our equals.)

"If they contiue to "bias" it, they are fighting against not only their best interests and their success, but is certain to relegate them to also-ran status."

What do you mean by bias?

Google's bias shows up in Google News where the news sources include an abundance of lefty sources like Media Matters. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is way out in front on this news rigging story and has been meticulously chronicling their bias on his site. Unfortunately, and maybe a by-product of their youth, the Google founders have been big supporters of lefty causes. There have joined the ranks for lefty business leaders like George Soros [Quantum Fund], Peter Lewis [Progressive Insurance], Joan Blades and Wes Boyd [Moveon.org].

"Google's bias shows up in Google News where the news sources include an abundance of lefty sources like Media Matters. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is way out in front on this news rigging story and has been meticulously chronicling their bias on his site"

I looked at the Google news site trying to get a list of the 4500 news sources they say they use. I coudn;t find a list but I did find a link to suggest sources to be added.

Maybe we should figure out who is missing that has good coverage and see if Google will add them.

http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/request.py

I'll check out Little Green Footballs -thanks for the tip.

Google will sell $6.1 billion in ads, nearly double what it sold last year, according to Anthony Noto, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. That is more advertising than is sold by any newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network. By next year, Mr. Noto said, he expects Google to have advertising revenue of $9.5 billion.

Dot bomb, LOL! They've got no tangible assets and their P/E is too high, blah, blah, blah.

7 posted on 10/30/2005 7:23:54 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)

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