Google Kills Its Print Ads Program - Opportunity for Yahoo?

"In the last few months, we've been taking a long, hard look at all the things we are doing to ensure we are investing our resources in the projects that will have the biggest impact for our users and partners. While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we -- or our partners -- wanted."
-- Google's Spencer Spinnell, Director (now former?) of Google' Print Ads pilot, explaining that while Google will honor committments through March 31st, the plug is being pulled.

Susan sez: Given the dire state of revenue for print properties, this is a clear indicator that Google thinks the margin just isn't there, another thread in the this is going to get worse before it gets better meme. It also makes me wonder if this increases opportunities for Yahoo's newspaper consortium, which has mostly focused on online.

Note: It's striking to go back to the Yahoo! newspaper consortium site and see that it doesn not appear to have been touched or updated since September 2008. The APT platform site looks up to date, but the newspaper site...dead quiet.

Comments

[Garland Pol...:]

This is a very interesting observation...it also seems (strangely) good news for newspapers, as the newspapers move from being a commodity buy for advertisers into more of a niche buy. If newspapers were looking to Google to save them, it means that they weren't concentrating on their strengths.

While there are certainly ways that the ad buying process could be simplified for advertisers through software, selling ad space and creating ads for retail local advertisers is something that cries out for thinking and time.

Jan 21 11:53 AM