Response to http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2009/01/goog_rejects_di.php
Tom Foremski SVW
I am quite sure that Google can save newspapers, if they are prepared to save themselves!
Google has created perhaps the largest metaphorical ocean and Facebook et al have created 'Countries' amidst those seas. As sure as Apple and Microsoft dominate operating systems, the resultant change of landscape is almost certainly irreversible.
The Newspapers have resisted this by trying to create their own automatic 'easy-money' environments instead of negotiating rights of passage for their liners with the new incumbents.. or translated; have devalued their online value by working purely on volume attraction (in a vain attempt to compete maybe?) rather than nurturing their audiences and advertisers towards long-term loyalty. A CPM business model for newspapers is as meaningless as a Google without some aggregated value in top search results and concomitant brands.
Google needs quality content to satisfy any long-term and sustainable audiences' who journey through them, and the Newspapers have to come to accept the fact that they are demanding and expensive machines which now have to learn how to be 'profitably portable'! It is in Google's interests to both facilitate this and not also try to be something which it is not by trying to own the content creation space as well. (Read my other blog posts for why I believe this to be true.) In simple terms, why Tiffany is paying on a CPC basis to be on the front web page of The Tribune and Vogue.com's lead advertisers are HP and Aviva, again on CPC, completely highlights the point and baffles me! The advertisers are still there who need quality access to sophisticated niche consumer audiences, so the fact that those paid opportunities don't yet exist elegantly online is what needs to be resolved...and fast!
As I read it Eric is still offering that dialogue...in my humble opinion the Newspapers should take it! Jan [@] famebook.com
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