Comments on: Google As Content Company – A Trend Worth Watching

By: Norbert Mayer-Wittmann

Norbert Mayer-Wittmann — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:59:34 +0000

I still don’t understand why advertisers are willing to pay money to show up for morons, idiots, noobs, etc. — but I guess they can pay money to show up wherever they want. I guess they hope to become more well known among morons, idiots, noobs, etc. — I just wonder what that kind of brand recognition would do for their bottom line.

nmw

By: Vincent

Vincent — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:25:46 +0000

Google's becoming a modern day Microsoft, using their monopoly to get a piece of the action in almost everything that makes money on the web. Just look at the non-content areas they've moved into:

Deals, Music, Travel Booking, Restaurant Guides, Payment Processing .

If Places has a similar result as Yelp, a deal is similar to one on Groupon, if the booking tech can circumvent the airline or hotel website, if the music is on YouTube, if a site uses Checkout vs Amazon or Google -- does it go on? -- it'll likely be found higher in their search results than their competition.

Of course, we can't know for. Good for them while it lasts, but as we saw with MS, it can lead to an effort to defend the monopoly leaving open a new player to come in. We can only hope so. I don't want these guys knowing everything I do and then selling my "anonymous" information to third parties.

By: Arundhati

Arundhati — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:58:35 +0000

Google's forays into content have been focused on crowd sourced content and not in the creation or syndication of original content. That is why they are not necessarily a typical online media company.

Also, I'd expect them to favor the most relevant content source, regardless of whether they own it or now. User relevance trumps all.

By: Vanja

Vanja — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:26:27 +0000

Well, with the launch of Magnifier it’s obviously music. With Google Music and G + it could become an interesting mash up. Maybe movies and video. It would be compatible with YouTube rentals. That could definitely route the traffic to specific source and it could boost advertising.
I doubt Google will try further from travel and entertainment anytime soon.