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Google’s new 2009 display project

December 15th, 2008

Did the title get you? Honestly… I have no clue. I’ve heard some whacked out rumors — a new exchange, retiring dfp, building the uber-network of all uber-networks, taking over the world… Almost every conversation I’ve had in the last 2 months the big G has come up — what are they doing? They have all the strategic assets necessary to dominate display.. but aren’t. Why? Talent drain? Bad strategy? Who knows?

I imagine of all my blog readers have all heard small nuggets and rumors ideas floating around. This post is an open invitation to post what you know (be as anonymous as you like). No slander… and if you’re going to make something up at least make it so ridiculous nobody will believe you. Maybe collectively we can figure out what’s the behemoth is going to do.

PS: You can subscribe to the comment feed here. Don’t worry — I disabled commenting on my URL History post so the spam there has stopped.

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Posted by Mike Filed in google
8 Comments »

  • Not telling

    I’ve heard from a few sources that the reason they’ve been silent recently is that they’ve been working on an exchange that extends beyond DoubleClick that would include Google’s AdSense inventory. In other words, they’d allow outside buyers to buy display impressions on any impressions where they are currently serving AdSense. This would be great for their publishers (most of which, however, are long-tail), and also provide great reach for buyers.

  • Anonymous in Europe

    My tuppence worth – the US may turn a blind eye to Google dominance of display but I don’t believe the European Union will and I suspect Google probably know this. There was amazement in many quarters when they got away with the Doubleclick aquisition.

  • http://shiftmarket.com Vlad Stesin

    I doubt that they will make any big, game-changing moves in 2009. DoubleClick is still a good business, and they wouldn’t want to undermine it or put it at risk.

    The big changes will come when large publishers will start dropping DoubleClick as their ad platform, and that won’t happen soon.

    The one thing they could do easily is integrate Ad Planner with DoubleClick. That seems like a simple move, and has the potential of softly referring media sales to big publishers.

    Or we’ll all perish because OMG it’s a recession!

  • http://www.adexchanger.com Ad Traders

    It seems well-rumored that integration of adsense with the doubleclick ad exchange will occur as a previous commenter suggested.

    Would like to hear your thoughts but among many reasons it hasn’t happened to date, or even been announced – we’ll suggest – is three-fold:

    – With malignant inventory throughout much of the content network, it is difficult to make low performing CPC inventory work with advertisers buying on a CPM basis in the doubleclick exchange model. (DCLK wants that brand dollar advertiser ideally not the bottom feeder DR of adsense who seeks only reach.)

    – negative brand adjacency issues persist with adsense inventory.

    – contextual placements vs. site placements – adsense business is in part based on contextual buying and selling. Not sure that works with the first generation of doubleclick’s site targeting exchange. Goog needs to retrofit it.

    We’ll guess they open a new, larger exchange: doubleclick plus a “clean” content network with stricter vetting and auditing. Maybe it’s the Ad Planner idea? Dunno.

    Godspeed to big G and mike.

  • http://www.adexchanger.com/ad-exchange-news/advertising-exchange-links/ Recent Advertising Exchange Linkage: MikeOnAds, Anil Batra, Ashu Garg and More

    [...] On Ads is looking for rumors on what’s going on with Google’s display advertising [...]

  • http://www.classeparty.com/ Party Rentals

    “The rumors going on with googles display advertising and the double click is a good business”

  • Brit Abroad

    Honestly, I don’t think they will make any great moves. We all speculate feverishly but the reality is that Google have not said anything or when it comes down to it make anything other than search marketing work for them. The individual components are there for the most powerful exchange with the adsense network liquidity, search intent and Google Analytics tags implemented across thousands of clients sites but as noone has heard anything concrete I wonder if it’s just a bit too soon to expect anything big to happen in 2009.

  • http://www.rentecdirect.com Property Man

    We’re all probably aware, but Google has already hit “critical mass”. Just like Microsoft did many many many years ago. It seems once a company hits this size, their employees no longer care, their new “cool stuff” progress declines, and the company kind of becomes a bore. I think Google is great in many regards, and they’ve also done a few things to circumvent the private ISPs out there too, which is sorta of evil (against their motto), but all in all, I don’t expect anything big from Google for a while. They’ve ran out of “good” projects to work on, so unfortunately it’s down to killing off the competition now, which is going to make them look a lot more evil.

    I wish Google luck with whatever they do, so long as they maintain their “don’t be evil” attitude.