VentureBeat

Advertising is perhaps now the key element to Google. One could even make the argument that it’s even more vital to the company now than its core product, search, is. After all, if someone pulled the plug on Google’s AdSense and AdWords revenues, the company would be a shadow of itself. That’s why it continues to diversify its advertising projects.

Television is a particularly important space when it comes to advertising, and today, Google has announced a partnership with Bloomberg TV to supply ads for the channel. This follows deals Google has with NBC Universal (select channels) and Dish Network in the television space.

The reason Google ads are attractive to those in the television industry is that Google has developed a technology that lets advertisers know which ads are being watched at any given moment. A product that is more attractive to advertisers means a product that is more attractive to the content producers.

If something like this were to catch on, it could revolutionize the television advertising industry. The TV ads run through Google only cost money to advertisers when impressions are being made, just as Google’s online AdSense ads only charge per impressions made or click-throughs, as CNET notes.

Such a move could make television ad buys much more efficient for advertisers.

Also, as more content from the Internet makes its way to television, we could start to see a merging of the advertising landscapes for both industries. It’s smart for Google to have its hands in both pots.

Spot Runner is another company that was attempting to bridge the gap between online advertising and television advertising. Unfortunately, that company has had to lay-off employees recently and realign its strategy.

Here’s the latest action:

Apple can deactivate iPhone apps remotely? — The device can apparently phone home (to Apple), check your applications against a list of unauthorized ones and deactivate them remotely. iPhone Atlas found a URL that appears to contain the banned app list. If this is true, it’s troubling to say the least from a personal privacy perspective.

I Am Rich vanishes from the App Store — Speaking of Apple removing iPhone apps, it has removed what has been perhaps its most controversial application so far from the App Store, Cult of Mac points out. Maybe the company read some of the criticism on this site and others, or maybe it just realized that I Am Rich was a $999.99 app that did nothing. It’s still somewhat troubling that Apple can remove apps such as this, NetShare and BoxOffice without any explanation as to why it is doing so.

It also looks like at least one person downloaded I Am Rich by accident and is not happy!

Zoho hits 1 million users — The online office suite reached the milestone in less than three years. Of course, Google Apps also has hit 1 million users — in schools alone!

Sierra Wireless Buys Junxion Assets — The deal will allow Sierra to offer backhauling, which could help ease the strain on wireless networks by mobile Internet usage, according to VentureWire.

Dish Network and DirecTV thinking merger again — The Wall Street Journal has details.

Apple may finally release new monitors…in 2009 — The current crop of Cinema Displays have been around forever, which is odd for a company that does (product) refreshes quicker than your average monitor. MacWorld 2009 could bring us new ones, according to MacRumors.

Twitter gets profiled in Fortune — The micro-messaging service that we love to write about is getting a lot of mainstream press recently.

Digg gets a slick new Firefox 3 extension — Founder Kevin Rose explains more on the Digg Blog and in the video below.

Digg Firefox 3 Extension from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

Google will announce tomorrow (Tuesday) a deal to deliver ads to Dish Network, the nation’s second largest satellite TV company, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

This confirms rumors of such a deal we first mentioned at VentureBeat three weeks ago. The deal is significant because it extends Google’s empire to the huge $54 billion television market — and points to a new kind of ad: Since Dish is the nation’s leader in high definition and interactive TV programming, Google will eventually allow advertisers to target specific groups of viewers, based on information about the viewer demographics for each channel.

It follows a pilot test by Google to serve ads to subscribers of Astound Broadband, a cable provider owned by WaveDivision Holdings. From the WSJ:

Under an arrangement to be announced today, Google will sell TV ad spots through an online auction system, with advertisers bidding the amount they are willing to pay per thousand households that view each commercial. Google will send the commercials of the winning bidders to EchoStar, which will then insert them in an unspecified number of daily blocks in the TV programming it delivers to the roughly 13 million households that subscribe to its Dish service.

…Google plans to tell advertisers how many TV set-top boxes were tuned in to each commercial they ran, and charge based only on the number of set-top boxes where the commercial played. It additionally will provide advertisers data about whether users changed the channel during the commercial.

Google is relying on information collected from set-top boxes by operators such as EchoStar, which it says does not permit it to identify any specific subscribers. At least initially, Google is not matching commercials with the content of TV programs or showing ads to specific users based on previous viewing habits or other personal information. The Internet company says concern for user privacy will be a factor in any future efforts to target TV advertising more specifically.

Google is about to sign a deal with Dish Network, the nation’s second largest satellite TV company, to deliver ads for Dish’s network, VentureBeat is hearing.

We haven’t been able to confirm the rumor (Google has not yet responded to a request for comment).

In an effort to extend its growing advertising empire to television, Google has already started a pilot project in Concord, Calif. to deliver ads to cable television subscribers, it was revealed in yesterday’s WSJ.

The latest reports are significant because they suggest Google may be on its way to cracking the huge television market, to deliver a very different kind of ad to peoples’ living rooms. Dish is the nation’s leader in high definition and interactive TV programming. Google’s TV ads, like the ones Google distributes already to Internet sites, would be delivered more efficiently — targeted more closely to the content of the TV programming being watched, and more relevant to the people actually watching it — or at least, that is Google’s intent.

The Mountain View search engine is already making more than $10 billion from online ads. The U.S. television advertising market is about $55 billion, and so is a juicier target than even the Web.

According to the WSJ Saturday, Google has begun a test run serving up TV commercials to cable subscribers of Astound Broadband in Concord, Calif. In this deal, as in the one with Dish, Google is expected to purchase TV spots in advance, and then insert its own advertising — supplied by its advertising clients — so that it looks much like it does today. The difference is, Google would be the powerbroker.

It is unclear, however, how Google would access information about TV households in order to target its ads, without raising significant privacy concerns. But a Dish partnership is notable because of how interactive the Dish experience has become. Users already use keywords to search for programming, choose themes they like and create custom guides — all indicators of personal taste. Dish and Google might be able to obtain permission from users to exploit such information. Google could then work with any number of technology providers to help it automatically insert relevant ads into the programming.