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.
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,
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.