Internet wunderkind Google has begun selling advertisements in the last place anyone expected: in printed publications, reports the New York Times.
The Silicon Valley-based company, which has made billions of dollars selling short text-based ads online, has befuddled advertisers and publishers alike by purchasing ad space in PC Magazine and Maximum PC and then selling spots to smaller companies.
According to the NYTimes, this move resembles ad brokering, a practice shunned by many major publishers.
At a time when most print advertisers are looking to move online, the jump from the Internet to the printed page “‘really is back to the future,'” said Standard & Poor’s analyst Scott Kessler to the Los Angeles Times.
Jason Young, president of Internet publishing for Ziff Davis Media Inc., told the LATimes Google’s new program gives print advertisers some much needed encouragement.
“‘It’s a leading entity in the online world saying that print is really an important solution for marketers,'” Young said.
Not everyone is thrilled with the news, however. Some publishers that have traditionally sold ads directly to their clients are wary of Google becoming an all-too-powerful middleman.
Google would not elaborate on its motives except to say the program was a test, according to the NYTimes. The NYTimes also reported that Google executives have said in the past that they “see their rapidly growing online advertising business extending to other media forms.”
About Karl-Erik Stromsta
