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

[User 956]

So at what point does Google become self-aware?

Re:Skynet

[0racle]

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

[EraserMouseMan]

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.

Re:

[foobsr]

Go ahead. Supress my opinion.

I won't.

CC.

Re:

[eean]

Erm, by which you mean, going from being an ad company to being an ad company?

Sounds like they are still doing stuff high tech in regards to their radio advertising. There's nothing so special about the internets.

Re:

[Lord_Dweomer]

Going from the best search technology to just another ad agency.

Sorry, hate to nitpick here, but they are most certainly not an ad agency. I work in advertising (at an ad agency) and what Google has become (and has been for most of its life) is a media property with a sales force. Just like ClearChannel et. al.

And for anybody who thinks "ooo, they're paying 50% above prevailing salaries!" you need to gain a basic understanding of how this industry works. Their sales force gets a commission. Anybody in

Re:

[Jahz]

Don't you mean an ad agency with the best search technology? Just be happy Google understands enough about what it wants to give you what you want for free.

Search: generates ad revenue by providing you with information
GMail: free webmail with tons of space... so that you don't delete your old mail and Google can use it for language modeling corpus etc.
Groups: again ad revenue coupled with providing information
Docs and spreadsheets: probably another way to associate a language with your account for better ov

Re:

[ELProphet]

Surely, you meant the best ad agency.

Re:

[mordors9]

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:

[havenskate]

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.

Wow... some competition for ClearChannel?!

[chroot_james]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:

[nzMM]

I still enjoy radio allot, and i think its daylight robbery how Apple makes you pay for an FM radio addon!

Anyways regarding this Google thing, my only hope is that audio advertisments never make it to the internet in a big way, that would be horrible.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

I still enjoy radio allot, and i think its daylight robbery how Apple makes you pay for an FM radio addon!

Anyways regarding this Google thing, my only hope is that audio advertisments never make it to the internet in a big way, that would be horrible.

Yeah, the big problem is it only does FM. I have my iPod. I have my satellite radio. Now, the only thing I really want is AM radio. For music, it's my iPod or satellite. For local news, it's AM radio. I don't give one hoot about FM radio anymore - a vast wastel

Re:

[burndive]

allot

The word "allot" is a verb, meaining to assign a portion (or lot).

The adverbial phrase "a lot" means "a [substantial] amount."

Please refrain from inflicting further damage on the English language. I would like for it to make as much sense as possible.

Re:

[EatChex89]

ever since i bought my 30gb iPod last year, I haven't touched the radio.. In fact I find the radio inferior because it plays all this crap. My musical taste contrasts with the shit on the radio.

Podcasting

[From A Far Away Land]

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!

[MBCook]

<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>

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Martin Luther? Is that you?

Focussing On Their Core Business

[bc90021]

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.

[LWATCDR]

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

Re:

[hypoboxer]

Clear Channel stations run the Profit automation system. Google's recent aquisition of dMarc, which makes Scott Studios automation system. I would doubt any CC stations would jump no board with this. There are many other non-CC stations that run on a dMarc system. There is a ton a revenue available to sell.

Re:

[brett880]

Clear Channel stations run the Profit automation system. Google's recent aquisition of dMarc, which makes Scott Studios automation system. I would doubt any CC stations would jump no board with this. There are many other non-CC stations that run on a dMarc system. There is a ton a revenue available to sell.

Actually the name of the automation system is Prophet and your point is kinda moot since data can be moved easily in and out of pretty much every major automation system now (not that there are many left

Re:

[hypoboxer]

I understand that data can be moved from one system to another...but will it? The Prophet system, which is run on many CC stations can in theory take data from a dMarc or Enco or any other system. I think what Google has in mind here is to start a sales force that can utilize the dMarc system (at many stations) and create tons of money for stations and themselves. Why would Google want to share with CC and CC share with Google? I think that Clear Channel is seen as an "evil monster" because it not only

Re:

[Tringard]

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

They might become the Clear Channel monster, FTA:

Google's move into radio comes at a time when Clear Channel, the biggest radio station operator, is weighing a possible sale of the company.

Clear Channel, which controls an estimated 20 percent of local radio industry revenues, declined to comment on recent reports that Google could take a stake in the radio company, perhaps as part of a buyout l

Tag trolling?

[Jugalator]

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

Re:

[DaveM753]

I noticed that, too. I think it's a trap.

Re:

[Kobayashi Maru]

Yeah it's kind of weird. Every article seems to feature:

isatrap, fud, notfud

Every Ask Slashdot article is invariably tagged:

yes, no, maybe

I noticed the same thing with the EVIL tag for a while, then it disappeared. Weird.

Re:

[Jugalator]

I guess it disappears if moderators remove them for being inaccurate. Maybe it's some sort of GNAA-ish troll organization having fun again, because I assume you need quite a few people agreeing on a tag for it to appear.

What about podcasts?

[word munger]

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

[pedantic bore]

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.

Re:

[jo42]

> audio ads in web pages or on desktop

They are slowly Becoming Evil (tm)...

Speech recognition software?

[burndive]

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...

[tobiathan]

...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?

[QuantumFTL]

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?

Re:

[jrap]

Earlier this year they purchased [com.com] DMarc Broadcasting, a Newport Beach, Calif., company that works with radio advertisers in the sales, scheduling, delivery and reporting of radio ads.

just keep it on the radio

[grapeape]

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 t