Google Radio Ads Experiencing Early Troubles

An anonymous reader writes "Google's tech-heavy solution to advertising has worked wonders on the internet, and made it a friend to bloggers everywhere. The low-tech nature of traditional radio, though, has caused some conflicts with Google's radio ad service. The impersonal nature of online ads are very different than the one-on-one personalized service that radio advertising normally uses. While Google ads are running on some 700 radio stations, that's a very small part of the market. They are committed to improving, but onlookers think it will take a change in pitch. 'Whether Google can succeed in radio "is questionable, because you do need relationships with radio stations to give you something of value. If you don't have radio-focused personnel...you'll get the low-hanging fruit but may not be able to grow the market," said Maribeth Papuga, senior vice president and director of radio buying for Media Vest, a part of ad firm Publicis Groupe. "Their challenge is going to be having a broad enough list of markets and stations to make it a viable enough player on a national scale."'"

Comments

Google may be Big Brother

[alshithead]

Considering the fact that Google invaded North Carolina for a data center employing ~200 folks and gets to escape property taxes and other state taxes for up to thirty years...they seem to be on a pretty sound business model. I can't imagine their radio business will fail considering the effectiveness of their other efforts. All it takes is money and they have plenty of that.

"In January, Google announced it would build the computer center and bring up to 210 jobs in four years to Lenoir, a community 70 miles northwest of Charlotte hurting from the collapse of its furniture industry. In exchange, Caldwell and state officials approved incentives that could be worth more than $260 million over 30 years."

This from the Charlotte Observer...don't know if you may need to register... http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/16 711064.htm .

Incredible, 200 jobs gets them incentives worth $260 million over 30 years? Hell, they even got the elected county officials out there to help buy up the properties for their data center. The whole thing stinks on way too many levels. I guess I can rule out getting a job with them. :)

Re:Google may be Big Brother

[alshithead]

"$260 million over 30 years, with 210 jobs means each job created is valued at creating at least $41,269 per year for the states economy. If the employees are making twice that, it it attracts other companies to the area, plus you factor in the value for the local economy having the data centre there provides, it most likely makes very very good financial sense."

You obviously don't know the area. There is NOTHING left. The furniture and textile plants are all gone. I can guarantee that Google won't be paying $80,000 to folks who monitor climate control or even servers. You won't get a job in Charlotte (70 miles away!), a MUCH bigger market, for $80 grand without taking on significant management or other duties. Sys admins, programmers, and other tech folks are a dime a dozen with Bank of America and Wachovia farming functionality out overseas. Especially now, Bank of America just dumped a couple of hundred folks (contract and regular employees) in the last couple of months. Maybe the construction folks in this very rural community get an initial burst in building the data center, MAYBE the local HVAC folks get a new contract. However, there is no long term benefit to the locals in any way whatsoever.

Re:Google may be Big Brother (tax red herring)

[oski4410]

I think you bought the CO's story a bit too quickly. The real story goes something like this: under the standard tax rules, if Google invested $600M or so in NC they would pay $300M (!) in taxes. They got a $250M rebate so now they pay $50M. You didn't see similar stories about their Oregon datacenter because most of the taxes that were discounted in NC don't exist to begin with in OR. For example, in NC you have to pay (as a company) something called "personal property tax", plus there's sales tax, and in OR neither of these exist. Disclaimer: I'm neither a lawyer nor a tax accountant, but I know one ;-)