Google Moving Strongly Into Radio Advertising

AvgGatsby writes to let us know about Google's move into radio. The company is hiring "scores" of radio sales people in major markets and is offering them 50% above prevailing salaries. From the article: "Google spokesman Michael Mayzel said this week that the company will begin a public test of Google Audio Ads by the end of the year. Advertisers will be able to go online and sign up for targeted radio ads using the same AdWords system they use to buy Web search ads. It made a clear move into radio in January when it agreed to pay more than $1 billion, depending on performance, for dMarc Broadcasting Inc., which connects advertisers to radio stations through an automated advertising system. It's all part of what Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said is an investment in radio advertising that could grow over time to include up to 1,000 Google employees — not just in ad sales, but also in engineering and operations."

Skynet

So at what point does Google become self-aware?

Re:Skynet

When it does don't you think it might be ashamed about what its become? Going from the best search technology to just another ad agency.

Re:Skynet

It never will become ashamed. Google always knew what they wanted. It's the slashdotters that will have the mental crisis when they realize that Google uses them and their benevolent open sourceness to build Google's mega-money-making machine.

Go ahead. Supress my opinion.

Wow... some competition for ClearChannel?!

That would be fantastic! Electronic billboards would be great too. They could feed the ads straight off Google's wireless networks. Or even be the way to make money off the wireless networks. I'd like to see google processing tv shows and placing ads by relevance there too. I also wouldn't mind if they'd weight the ad as more relevant if it's funnier...

Luckily, I don't listen to radio

Since I bought my first MP3 player (tiny 20G Archos Gmini) I stopped listening to radio. Don't miss it even a tiny little bit.

Ads will rot your brain!

Podcasting

In a discussion with a former broadcast journalist yesterday, he thinks that traditional radio will be nearly gone as we know it, not to far in the future. Advertisers and sales people from those stations will either have to learn how to podcast, or I suppose now will find themselves working for Google Adsense.

I think I've heard one!

<announcer_voice> Are you worried about... mesothelioma?

Then just go to Google.com and type it in! Once you've clicked search, use one of the handy ads on the side of the page. </announcer_voice>

<legal_note>I'm the Google hive mind and I've approved this advertisement.</legal_note>

Focussing On Their Core Business

Everyone always chides Google on focussing on too many projects, but they are still focussing on their core business. They are also getting into Print Advertising as well:

http://news.com.com/Google+takes+ad+sales+to+print /2100-1024_3-5844889.html [com.com]

So the bottom line is that they're an advertising company with lots of side projects.

The question is.

Well they actually advertise on good radio stations? Any chance they can stop the Clear Channel monster!

Tag trolling?

What the heck, including this article, there's now at least 18 of 23 articles on the front page marked as itsatrap. :-/

What about podcasts?

If Google's doing this for radio, then what about podcasts? If I could put google ads into podcasts as easily and unobtrusively as I can with adsense, I might consider it (podcasting, that is).

This could be ugly

The day Google searches result in audio ads popping up on my desktop is the day Google gets black-holed at my firewall.

I hope that's not where this all ends...

The whole appeal of adsense is that they're (often) reasonably relevant and non-obnoxious. Make the obnoxious, and I make them go away.

Speech recognition software?

The best way to target advertisments would be to listen to the radio stations and advertise products based on what's discussed--at least for talk radio. That's pretty much what they already do with web pages, only those are much easier for a computer to read.

Once Terrestrial Radio Goes Away...

...when google buys Sirius or XM, you will be able to get free satellite (sans Howard Stern and other shock jocs, who will on only be available to paid subscribers), this will all start to make alot more adsense than it may seem to at present.

Can Google do radio better?

Is there some reason that Google would excel at radio stuff? I mean, sure, they already distribute a lot of ads and why not have a radio presence, but it's not like they have the giant platform that is Google Search to spout better, more targetted ads through. Isn't it much more difficult to target Radio ads properly?

Is there something that I'm missing that Google can really ad to the equation here? Or is this yet another example of a great company moving away from a core competency and expanding towards just being mediocre?

just keep it on the radio

If its only targeted audio ads for radio, its no big deal to me. I listen to talk radio mostly and already hear plenty of worthless "in one ear and out the other" ads for everything from hottubs to frozen custard. I cant say I have ever purchased anything because of an ad but I can give you a long list of products I went out of my way to avoid after their commercials annoyed me.

Where I concider it crossing the line is when it goes from radio ads to those annoying audio web ads. Those annoy me so much I turn the speakers on my computer off when im surfing. In fact I would say that audio web ads would be #3 in my top 3 of most annoying things online, #1 being spam and #2 being sites that want their headlines on google news but require registration to view them.

Re:The REAL Google has finally stood up

So instead of the CDs coming in the mail, we will get an ad boy/girl coming to our door. Hopefully they are short enough to set my beer on their head, miss those coasters.

Re:It's all shit

Martin Luther? Is that you?

Re:The REAL Google has finally stood up

I dunno where you've been... Google has always been an advertising company. Search has always simply been their most successful delivery of ads alongside adwords on publisher sites.

I think you're missing the point completely. 1) companies have to make money. 2) Google has done a lot for search and has maintained their simple webpage as they promised. 3) profit -- and you yell EVIL!... sigh.