Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Is Google a content company now?

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Jason Preston — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:49:40 -0000

Google may or may not want to be in the content business, but it more or less is, given that the distinction is no longer whether you *create* content but where and how you serve it. YouTube is a content business. Google owns YouTube.

In many ways, Google is the ULTIMATE content business. It is the company that provides the best dashboard to the web's content, and it serves ads alongside a sizeable portion of it.

What MacFarlane's cartoons are doing in the middle of AdSense I don't really know. My best guess is that Google is trying to work on the "blind spot" that internet users have developed towards the google ad boxes.

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Tom Foremski — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:17:49 -0000

I'm not sure I understand how this is not advertising...

Even if it wasn't advertising this is far from making GOOG into a content company. BTW, it already pays AP to use its content in Google news.

GOOG is and will always be a software and server company, it does not want to be in the content business. Yahoo tried to be in the content business with mixed results...

Re: Is Google a content company now?

johnkoetsier — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:22:54 -0000

I suspect this is one of those "hey let's try something different and see what happens" type of things.

Maybe it will work. Maybe it will fall flat.

Either way, Google will have learned something.

Re: Is Google a content company now?

gregorylent — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:01:10 -0000

like a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down ..

trying anything to get advertising to remain palatable, or become palatable, depending on you pov

i think even google knows ads aren't sustainable long term, more space created than things to advertise

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Czar — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:12:56 -0000

I've never heard of this deal before between Google and that certain cartoonist. This is weird. Google's acting strange recently. What does it try to tell? Are they changing a new business scheme?

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Shawn Farner — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:12:34 -0000

It is definitely a strange deal. I'm waiting to see one to fully understand what they're trying to accomplish with it.

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Mark Ury — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:18:24 -0000

Google rolled out “gadgets” last year and partnered with a few media companies and ad agencies to demonstrate how you could use Adsense to deliver “apps instead of ads.” I think the MacFarlane deal is similar: trying to provoke producers, media owners, and planners to innovate around distribution, even if the delivery mechanism is hitched to general-purpose search. It’ll probably fail (the demographic is a bit narrow, search is too directional, etc), but it’s a better place to fail than, lets say, Gmail or Googledocs, which generally don’t add much to the bottom-line or improve their premiums.

Re: Is Google a content company now?

mathewi — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:44:08 -0000

Thanks, Mike -- I'm glad I'm not the only one :-) That said,
however, it is nice to see people experimenting, even if we can't
figure out what they're up to exactly.

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Michael Masnick — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:29:14 -0000

Well, as a true believer in the "content is advertising/advertising is content" concept, I'll say that I agree with Mathew. I have no clue what to make of this deal. I think they may have gotten the whole setup backwards. The point of advertising = content is that you focus on established *content* channels to deliver advertising, not focusing on established *advertising* channels to deliver content.

I don't know. I just haven't figured out how these content units are actually used. Who uses them and how? And who looks at them? The whole thing seems confusing.

Re: Is Google a content company now?

mathewi — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:29:06 -0000

Reminds me of the first big-time TV show -- Milton "Mr. Television"
Berle's show Texaco Star Theater :-)

Re: Is Google a content company now?

leigh — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:25:33 -0000

Yeah I'd have to agree with Rob's comment. What is advertising any more?
FYI, Hockey Night in Canada was created by MacLaren McCann the Ad Agency (it was originally General Motors Hockey Broadcast and GM remains a client of Maclaren's to this day)

Re: Is Google a content company now?

mathewi — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:43:05 -0000

True -- and all advertising is content. I guess I momentarily forgot
my Web 2.0 catechism :-)

Re: Is Google a content company now?

Rob Hyndman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:40:17 -0000

I thought all content is advertising. ;)