Google Forays into Print Advertising

dotpavan writes "It's not that if Google farts, it makes headlines, but this move is a smart one, at least for a tech company which was primarily thought of a search-engine company. Yahoo News reports that Google has ventured into print ads (or offline ads as they are called there) by buying pages at PCMagazine and Maximum PC. More interesting is the website adsbygoogle.com which has these images, but the main page is not functional. "

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Google Ads are good for democracy

[ThatGeek]

You'll probably think that I am a nut, but I think that Google ads are important for a democratic system. Here's why.

In the traditional media world (newspapers and TV), content producers are beholden to advertisers. They don't want to say anything that will offend their sponsors for fear of losing revenue.

Google (online) ads correct the problem. By truly separating producer and advertiser, keeping each fairly anonymous to the other, content producers are not required to pander to advertisers -- it's difficult for advertisers to boycott the web pages on which their ads happen to appear. Content producers can create content as they wish and express the ideas that they wish without fear of retaliation.

It's too bad a similar system can never be created in the offline (dead-tree) world that Google is now examining.