Google’s Next Step – Global Domination

Google Inc. just made a deal with U.S. TV satellite company EchoStar in an attempt to enter the TV advertising business. On Monday EchoStar and Google said they will partner to create an automated system for buying, selling, delivering and measuring TV ads on EchoStar's 125 channel Dish Network.

Google pay-per-click advertising has transformed the Internet and now Google is aiming to bring the same system to conventional media like radio, TV and printed media. This will really shake up the TV industry, especially the cable aspect which relies so heavily on their data for feedback from their viewers.

If Google intends to face off against Nielsen Media Research, the world of TV rating will certainly be shaken up. The stakes in this game are massive as TV ad revenues total over $70 billion a year, the largest share of corporate branding marketing in the world. Google said that once the company has established a foothold in the U.S. market they will take aim at international platforms according to a news release from Reuters via Yahoo! yesterday. 

Measurement of the effectiveness of advertising is the single most valuable commodity that media networks have. If Google can superimpose their ad measurement and sales architecture onto traditional media outlets then the Web would essentially control all forms of media. Google will have a massive hill to climb to get past essentially the resources of Time Warner, Cox and Comcast.

A system like Google uses would effectively render broader measuring systems obsolete as far as user feedback is concerned. This action by Google is a very bold move into the realm of traditional media. Early reactions to the news point to the relative ineffectiveness in the Nielsen ratings and experts project actual increased spending with a Google type system in place:

"Once you can measure performance, advertisers are more likely to spend," said Bill Harvey, a media measurement consultant whose client list reads like a Who's Who of major U.S. and European brand advertisers.

Just a thought from this writer, but if Google has no qualms about exerting this kind of pressure on these traditional moguls, then I expect our Web 2.0 "Google killers" list can now expect additional resources in their quest. Traditional media has been continuously pouring dollars into the Web, so do not be surprised to see a "chunk" of money tossed into a comparable traditional system of ad measurement, an online presence to rival Google or both.