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Google In Bidding To Buy DoubleClick
A number of readers clued us to the latest development in the saga of te sale of DoubleClick: Google has thrown its hat into the ring against Microsoft and (reportedly) Yahoo and AOL. Most of the stories quote a Wall Street Journal piece that is only available to subscribers. Google's entry into the bidding may boost the price for the remaining pieces of DoubleClick (parts of the company having already been sold off) to $2 billion, twice what its current owners paid for the whole thing. Some reports speculate that this figure could give Microsoft pause.
Mr. "Don't be evil" in the running to buy one of the most Evil and Rude companies on the 'net.
Somehow I doubt it's to dismantle them and slowly kill the bastards responsible...
It makes perfect sense - Google and DoubleClick both make money from inserting ads into web sites. But while Google have some of the least intrusive/annoying ads, DoubleClick are at the opposite end of the spectrum. But then both of them have a reputation for gathering personal information, too. If this does happen, I hope Google makes DoubleClick ads less irritating, and not the other way around.
I don't care who buys it. I'll never see a DoubleClick ad again as long as Adblock Plus can be set to *doubleclick* . Whoever gets them gets a losing business model.
I remember a few years back, before Google's advertising services became popular, that using DoubleClick's ads on your site was all the rage. There used to be large groups of people who'd defend DoubleClick to the death, it seemed. Whenever talk of competitors' offerings arose, even the early ones of Google, these folks would come out in force just to prove you wrong. Sometimes they bordered on insanity. I recall one fellow asking me if I'd "shave my balls" for Google after I remarked that I liked how their ads were unobtrusive and relevant.
Now we hear virtually nothing from these people. I think that this whole situation just goes to show how some of the most significant online media companies can become irrelevant so quickly. The MySpaces and YouTubes of today will likely be long forgotten even in as little as two to three years.
Why don't double-click just put out a "buy double-click" ad. Then everyone can play!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...people fight to buy DoubleClick.
Perhaps Google wants doubleclicks patents, with it they could potentially scare away any new comers into their cash cow ad business....
#
DoubleClick's "DART" Patent
# 5,948,061. This is DoubleClick's "DART" patent, entitled "Method of delivery, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks." Here is the abstract:
Methods and apparatuses for targeting the delivery of advertisements over a network such as the Internet are disclosed. Statistics are compiled on individual users and networks and the use of the advertisements is tracked to permit targeting of the advertisements of individual users. In response to requests from affiliated sites, an advertising server transmits to people accessing the page of a site an appropriate one of the advertisement based upon profiling of users and networks.
I guess Google are looking at it like this.
1. They manage to win the bidding war = one less adspace competitor and quite possibly more customers.
2. They manage to up the price by millions maybe even billions of dollars and one of their major competitors (Microsoft or Yahoo) ends up spending an inflated amount on something they would have bought even if Google didn't enter the race.
Google can't lose.
I seriously doubt they'd continue the marketing style of DoubleClick.
(I too didn't even realise doubleclick was still around *hugs adblock*)
Isn't it possible, that Google is engaged in a little eBay-style shill bidding? Google doesn't really want Doubleclick. In fact, Google would probably prefer NOT to have DoubleClick, and not to have DoubleClick EXIST at all. Google just wants to deny Microsoft an opportunity, or failing that, make them pay WAY more than fair value for the privilege. Google can play the table for a few rounds in a bidding war with Microsoft, and then back away at the last second when they think Bill has reached his table stakes. Not that Bill can't afford to pay some amount, it's just that at some point, Microsoft will really regret lining Hellman & Friedman's pockets any more than they had to. Google doesn't care if H&F get rich, as long as it makes Bill poorer. ;)
And in Google's mind, it might not even be evil. It might be PREVENTING evil. If I were Google (and I'm not, darn it) I'd totally play it that way.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
I often hear this "flooded with ads" argument, but generally anything I look for I find on the first page. I'm willing to bet that no less than 99% of my searches require me to look beyond the second page at the worst. What exactly are you looking for all of the time? Any examples so I can see what you're talking about? (I've tried Yahoo! as well and don't have any issues with them either).
:-P (I'm assuming you meant Adwords).
As for Adsense, if you're paying to use adsense, you need your head examined. Google pays you to use Adsense
Google is buying more and more companies that harvest user preference information. With their own service they know what kind of things people are looking for, what people they are in contact with and (if they're so inclined) what topics people discuss, with YouTube they know what kind of entertainment people enjoy to watch and what kind of content interests them, with doubleclick they'd know what "pathes" people take on their way through the WWW.
And to be honest, I don't even have an idea what other companies they scooped up on the road that we didn't even hear about. I'm quite sure a decent profiler has no trouble putting the puzzle together.
So my question is why. At least I know, I wouldn't collect that amount of data just for kicks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does that mean I get a reduction in the number of cookies I tell FireFox to reject?
Darn... I was getting used to saying no.
Bottom line they are in the race to buy out the competition. DoubleClick is Googles closest competitor.