Google Print Revival Still Kicking

from the printing-money? dept

Wed, Jul 18th 2007 10:14am — Joseph Weisenthal

Late last year, Google announced that it would take another shot at selling ads for print media. The company had tried this once before with magazines, but the effort didn't pan out particularly well. This time around, the service is for newspapers, and the company believes it may be working out a little better. After the initial trial, the company is ready to let more advertisers participate in the program. Participating newspapers say they've been fairly pleased with the offering, as the platform is allowing them to find new advertisers. Still, the platform can only accomplish so much. No advertising system is going to change the fact that the slump in the newspaper business is rapidly getting worse. And of course, print ads will never have other attributes that make Google's traditional model appealing, such as the ease with which performance and ROI can be measured.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: advertising, newspapers
Companies: google

4 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

dorpus, 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:57am

Is there a market for altered news photos?
In Korea, where anti-Japanese sentiment is strong, a large birthday celebration held for a Korean pop star in Japan was shown with the Japanese flag digitally altered to erase the red sun. The company that handled the photo says it was an "accident".

http://news.www.infoseek.co.jp/society/story/20070718jcast200729436/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2007 @ 11:44am
  
  Re: Is there a market for altered news photos?
  What's the use of obviously linking to a completely unrelated Japanese story, in Japanese character writing - on a United States based website that is purely written in English and caters to primarily English-language readers? (oops, I just fed the troll)
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 18 Jul 2007 @ 11:40am

Pointless
Can we digitally alter dorpus comments to make them relevant?
...?
I thought not.

It is really just an online automation of the process of looking for advertising spots. It would make sense if you didn't want to hire a marketing expert for a small company or organization. It is DIY advertising.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Noel Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2007 @ 2:32pm

Futile
I suppose people still read newspapers, and will continue to do so for a few years, but Google's efforts at this seem futile to me. It's like taking an old 1905 crank telephone and trying to add a wi-fi, camera and GPS to it. Let newspapers die, Google, and focus on the next new thing. That's Google's strength.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]