The fact that newspapers are somehow counting for Google to be the remedy to all/most of their ills shows once again how risk averse and unimaginative the industry has become:
According to the NY Times:
In a move into the old-fashioned business of ink on paper, Google is going to start selling advertisements that will appear in the print editions of 50 major newspapers.
Google’s plan will give the publishing business a high-tech twist: the company will expand its computer system, which already auctions off advertisements on millions of Web sites, to take bids for newspaper ads as well. Hoping to reach out to a new crop of customers, such as small businesses and online retailers, many of the largest newspaper companies, including Gannett, the Tribune Company, The New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company and Hearst, have agreed to try the system in a three-month test set to start later this month.
For Google, the test is an important step to the company’s audacious long-term goal: to build a single computer system through which advertisers can promote their products in any medium. For the newspaper industry, reeling from the loss of both readers and advertisers, this new system offers a curious bargain: the publishers can get much-needed revenue but in doing so they may well make Google — which is already the biggest seller of online advertising — even stronger.
First off, didn’t Google already do this and bomb? I recall reading an article in Business Week where advertisers were not impressed with its results.
This is an industry that right now has nothing to lose (ie. it’s losing as is, so it can take risks), we’ve seen how much leverage they can exert when they launch something (ie. click here to see how impressive was Careerbuilder’s sudden growth).
Will Google help the newspapers? Maybe. But it won’t solve much and if successful, will cause more problems that it will solve (as in iTunes “helping” the record labels but then holding them hostage).
The truth is that newspapers are one or two deals / or investments away from turning their might into something valuable online and with their traditional businesses in general, but they have once again chosen the “girlie” approach by shifting the risk and opportunity to Google.
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