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Google to Transform Television Advertising?
Brad Zink writes "According to Robert X. Cringely, Google is poised to enter into the world of television advertising. This would usher in a new era for the venerable medium, creating a tidal wave of revenue for the networks, while solidifying Google's position in the advertising industry. Cringely develops this prediction based on his belief that Google is developing a network of data centers to be placed around the globe, which would be used to serve television commercials in addition to its current online content."
I was working on some scotch theory with a very good friend about 6 months ago -- we were both in a very short lived video production business ages ago. I had recently considered adapting Google to television in a very unique way and wanted his input.
My thought was to take television's closed captioning text and IMDB show data and run it through Google's "I'm feeling lucky" API in real time. Eventually you could have really cool "pop up" information program running that can give you pop up information correlated to what is happening on screen. Software running on a Media Center PC (or a Tivo?) could give you real time information on actors and what they're talking about. Imagine watching ER, wondering about a disease or illness they're talking about, and instantly having that information pop up without anything but a button click (if even that). Remember VH1's Pop Up Video?
As the conversation moved forward, we realized the real power of bringing Google to TV is advertising -- bringing ads to the web (more than just a GIF or SWF) and bringing web ads to the television -- contextual of course. Hours passed and the ideas that moved through the conversation seemed revolutionary (until we realized that Brin is a billionaire and we, well, aren't). Google certainly has the most powerful contextual algorithms in the market (although Yahoo is quickly catching up). Google's use of gmail and possibly AOL e-mails and IMs to aggregate even MORE user data (not just contextually but also within a physical region) will definitely give them more specific insight into a user's needs based on more than just what they browse.
The number one complaint I hear on why people use Tivo (or ThePirateBay as it seems to be lately) is that advertising sucks -- it is unimportant, too generalized and the same thing over and over. During our conversation half a year ago I made mention of how I'd love to see old commercials for current products -- the old Coke commercials are priceless (and comical) and there is NO reason why Google couldn't offer to bring back this and more. Instead of the same 40 ads in rotation, they have over 60 years or so of advertising they could bring back (some pre-TV movie theatre advertising) and stick in rotation, especially if the company is more logo-centric than actual product-minded.
I just signed on to Akimbo (need to set it up on my MCE box) and wonder how long it will be before these guys connect with Google. Tivo, Akimbo and MCE are programmable set top boxes just waiting to be utilized by Google. As even video game systems become more of a set-top programming station rather than a specific use peripheral, Google has an opportunity to really jump on everyone's hardware rather than design and sell their own. "Designed for Google!" could be the new sticker on every consumer device.
The conversation finished up (as far as I remember, I wish I recorded these nights of single malt drinking!) with us discussing things that Google might not even have put much weight in at the time -- SMS, VoIP, WAP searches and other data to be aggregated and utilized. If Google offers free VoIP, what prevents them from anonymously and generically aggregating your phone call keywords? If you're using Google SMS searches from your GPS-enabled phone, what prevents them from offering advertising to a local business (other than the one you're searching for). Taking all that information into their data centers and using their complex heuristic analysis gives them an awesome amount of information that advertisers could only have dreamed of 10 years ago. Being able to match price to need is also a big deal -- imagine what car dealers would offer Google for a local car buyer searching for a deal or how Google could knock around the realty market? Not exactly topical in terms of television advertising, maybe, but Google + Advertising can change how we define "on demand programming" nonetheless. Tomorrow's TV could just be today's BitTorrent with the Go
The Big Thing for 2006 is TV on demand, downloaded via some p2p technology.
Take a look at the top downloads on a site like Piratebay and you'll see that they are all TV episodes.
What Google is probably lining up to do is to compete against Apple, who are moving into the same market.
Google are betting that they can deliver TV episodes for free, with advertising. Apple are betting they can sell TV episodes with no advertising. Microsoft are trying to make it all happen through the XBox.
This is why Google's been buying dark fibre. This is why Google is buying into AOL, for access to TW shows. This is what will drive the next generation of portable gadgets.
Yes, the Internet and P2P is finally going to transform TV into something that actually produces good entertainment, and will one day turn around and redefine the movie industry as well.
My blog
Over the last few years I've been struck by Google's ability to compete in a very effective way. Generally they seem to eschew a fight with the main competitor and rather simply rewite the rules and assert their dominance in that field (think online ads). Advertising is one of those ivory tower industutries where small firms must 'play ball' in order to get any decent contracts (my brother was in advertising for a number of years). Google, it is speculated, will simply rewrite the notion of broadcast advertising and assert a stranglehold on the new style. An interesting gamebit, to be sure.
The big New York ad firms will be scrambling to figure out how to beat Google at this new game. No if Google opened Google Studios, where they could produce the content of the ads, they would be richer than God
I have a friend who is developing a technology that would mix seamlessly with this Google idea, and I believe he is currently in talks with cable companies about it. The device he's engineered will actually map the picture coming accross the broadband cable to your television set, and with a joystick-like remote control you can navagate around the screen and click on products that you are interested in. Information, or links to information, about each product or person in a show would be served along the broadband stream making virtually everything you see in a show "clickable." It would allow you to say, get information about the gadget that is being used in CSI, or stats on your favorite sports player/team.
It seems that integration with Google would be invaluable for something like this, and it would really change the landscape of advertising content. We would begin to choose what ads we want to see based on our personal interest in a certain item. Since DVRs are striking a blow to the standard 30 second spot, and product placement is growing in leaps and bounds this really seems like the new stage for advertisement in general, but best of all it might allow us to finally have seamless programming.
Sorry I don't have a link to info about this device, he doesn't have a product site built up yet since it's still in development.
I can see them possibly having a database matching the IP of my television to the IP of my home computer...so in theory, if I Google a product, they'll be able to match those IP numbers. But let's say I don't Google the price of a new radio or whatever. Let's say I go straight to the manufacturer's website, or I go to Amazon or Best Buy. Google won't know what I'm looking for...unless they somehow cut a deal with those other companies, perhaps offering cheaper advertisements in exchange for information about which IP numbers were browsing which products. On a happier note...does this mean that if I write myself a little script to Google Jennifer Garner every half hour or so, that I will only get commercials featuring Jennifer Garner? Cuz that would totally kick ass.
Cringely really has a thing for Goggle, but his thing seems to always be going in the wrong way. He's still hook on his Data Center trailers which don't exist (the one in the Goggle parking garage is for the Internet archive) and he really wants them to be used. To this end he keeps on coming up with more far fetched and crazy ideas about how they will be used, because otherwise he will have to face reality and admit they don't exist.
He's wrong, his whole concept as presented just won't work. Never mind the privacy implications or the fact that everything you do online and watch on TV will be tracked and logged, but the bandwidth just doesn't exist. For this to work every house that get's the Goggle adds would need a set top box to insert the adds, and a broadband pipe thick enough to download them on the fly. It just won't work with today's level of technology.
Even if you limited to people who want to be a part of it (and honestly, how many people say "I want to see more commercials!"... that would be zero). The fact is, the only way I can see Goggle getting enough people on the system to make it worth while is to PAY them to use it.
In the end, all it will do is lose Goggle money hand over fist, faster then a $200 PC would. It's a game they can not win, and if Goggle can't win, they don't play.
P.S. Hey Cringely, can I get some of whatever you are smoking. It sounds GOOD!
seems to be building itself on top of the M$oft platform. Most hardware vendors are going w/ media center pre-installed. What's different in this scenario is that the browser isn't going to be as centric as it is on the desktop pc. Apple seems to be heading in this direction as well with front row [http://www.apple.com/imac/frontrow.html%5D. I don't know but I think Google is going to need to pursuade hardware vendors to use their new GoogleOS instead of windows media center (ROFL) before being taken seriously in "interactive TV Land".
If you believe Bill Hicks (and I'm not entirely disinclined to disagree with him on this point) the advertising industry is inherently evil. If you believe some recent psychological theory on the matter, the reason people are more depressed and unhappy in western developed societies, is the promotion of the "have" culture, over the more positively beneficial "be" culture.
Rampant consumerism is the champion of the "have" culture. it's tool of choice is advertising.
Google say they're comitted to doing no evil (and I'm prepared to believe that this is a genuinely held intent).
Is it possible to ultimately square this with being involved in the advertising industry, and the promotion of the "have" consumerist society?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Even with hundreds of cable channels we don't get "narrowcast" ads. The technology to do it is all there already. Why do I currently get tampon ads during a midnight episode of Evangelion? Nobody thinks that is the target market. The tampon maker had no idea that their ad would show up there. What they buy are these large horizontal "media buys". They make a "Buy" for a few million $ that includes spots all over the place. For the same $ that it would take to buy targeted time on the Lifetime Network, they can get the same amount of time there and a bunch of other ad spots that are basically "free". A favorite of some friends of mine that worked together in the early 90's is the company's placement of a full back cover ad for a rather arcane pice of sofware in Field and Stream magazine. Yeah, it was a stupid place for the ad and there are million of better things you could spend the $ on. But it was one of those "media buy" packages. For the same $ that it cost to put it on the back cover of Byte and PC World you could do one of these deals and get those two and Field and Stream and Ladies Home Journal and a few others as well - so why not?
"The system" isn't set up to narrowcast its ads to those who are the likelies customers. If they don't use what they could do now, they are unlikely to use this type of thing from Google.
Sure, they could wake up and smell the money. It's a pretty hide bound industry though.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Plus, why would they adopt a strategy any different than Adsense? Google doesn't mind sending you to other web pages, because their ads are on those pages. Similarly, they won't mind sending you to other people's video content.
Actually, this could be the catalyst for an explosion of amateur video content. Imagine: I make a video, doesn't matter what. Some sort of short clip, independent movie, even a regular TV show. I upload it to Google Video. Google dynamically inserts the ads every time someone watches it, and I get paid some micropayment for it.
Good, popular content will become a hit and make the producers a lot of money. Sucky content won't. Google, the mechanism that delivers the right eyeballs to advertisers, makes billions either way.