Yet another sign Google is getting serious about cost-cutting: It is dropping its efforts to sell print advertising in newspapers. In a blog post put up this afternoon, the company says it will drop its Print Ads product at the end of February.
One sign that Google (GOOG) isn’t getting desperate about cost-cutting: I’m told no employees will lose their jobs as a result of the decision.
Back in Google’s go-go growth years it seemed inevitable that the company would expand its killer search ad platform to other media: It would tackle print, radio and television.
But none of these expansions has taken hold yet: Google’s move into radio, via the acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting, has gone nowhere. And its efforts to sell TV time have been more or less limited to an experiment with Echostar’s Dish Network. But the company did sign a pact with GE’s (GE) NBC last fall.
The move comes in the wake of Google’s announcement that it was laying off up to 100 recruiters and chopping a handful of no-impact programs like Dodgeball. It wouldn’t be a shock to see even more programs dropped in the near future.
And now for a trip down memory lane, all the way back to July 18, 2007, courtesy of Digital Daily:
Encouraged by the latest results of Google Print Ads, a service that allows advertisers to buy traditional newspaper space in 50 national and local papers, the company is expanding it to include 225 newspapers. Together those publications have a combined circulation of almost 30 million and serve all but three of the top 35 media markets, which could be a compelling proposition to the hundreds of thousands of Google AdWords users who are now eligible to purchase ad space in them. ‘We believe newspapers are a critical component in the marketing ecosystem,’ Spencer Spinnell, head of sales strategy for Google Print Ads, told the New York Times. ‘More than 50% of adults read newspapers every day, and marketers are always trying to reach new customers. It’s always a great multiplier effect when marketers think holistically both offline and online.’
Spinnell said Google still wants to find a way to help the ailing journalism trade.
"We remain dedicated to working with publishers to develop new ways for them to earn money, distribute and aggregate content, and attract new readers online," he said. "We will continue to devote a team of people to look at how we can help newspaper companies. It is clear that the current Print Ads product is not the right solution, so we are freeing up those resources to try to come up with new and innovative online solutions that will have a meaningful impact for users, advertisers, and publishers."
Ref: http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090120/another-google-product-killed-print-ads-no-one-wanted/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10146065-93.html
