Google testing the print advertising market

Google has now started to expand its advertising business to print. As the New York Times reports, Google, in what resembles "ad brokering", started buying ad space in technology magazines and resells the space in smaller parts to advertisers of its online system. Jason Young, president of Internet and consumer technology publications for Ziff-Davis, the publisher of PC Magazine, said in the New York Times: "We're thrilled for PC Magazine in print to be presented to Google's fantastic base of hundreds of thousands of smaller advertisers."

Google is offering the print ads to its advertisers for a fixed fee, but "some in the industry predict that it may ultimately experiment with auctioning off space and perhaps set rates based on the number of responses to an ad, as measured by calls to a certain phone number or visits to a Web site", writes New York Times. News.com states: "The experiment ... is Google's latest foray into display advertising and another big step toward becoming a one-stop shop for ad sales, whether online or offline. The trial also marks the first time the company has ventured offline with any of its products, according to industry watchers."

Up to now Google's experiment is restricted to technology magazines, including Maximum PC and PC Magazine. But if Google continues to expand in print, it could mean a major change to newspapers as well, for instance through Google Alerts and Google News. At the moment Google doesn't sell advertising when it links with a newspaper article. But if Google starts to build partnerships with newspaper companies, it could be the beginning of a new stage in relationships.

Source: New York Times, News.com