Google's efforts to expand its advertising empire beyond the confines of the Internet have hit their first major setback. The company said Tuesday that it would end a two-year-old program to sell ads in newspapers because the effort, called Google Print Ads, had not been as successful as expected.
Google said the program, which sought to bring Google's automated method of selling ads through auctions to the newspaper industry, will end Feb. 28. The program began in November 2006 as a test, and Google later expanded it to some 800 newspapers, including major dailies like The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune.
But the amount of newspaper ad space sold via Google was small, newspapers and industry analysts said. Still the program, along with two similar efforts by Google to sell ads in television and radio, were seen as high-profile tests of Google's ability to bring the efficiencies of an automated marketplace to large, and sometimes, inefficient advertising markets.
A Google spokesman declined to comment on the company's audio and television ad programs. But analysts say they have also faced challenges. (International Herald Tribune)
Reply to this Hmm - interesting - is it google's efforts that failed? or is print advertising going out of fashion?
Reply to this personally i dun think print ads will ever go out of fashion, there still have their 'target consumers/audience' - but probably google's method of auctioning it? in my country, auctioning to sell ads wont work successfully (i believe). unless u desperately need to get some ads out at that time (due to last minute decision or something unforseen which has rather minimal chance) if not i dun see the need to do so?
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