Google to Transform Television Advertising? 221
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."
Re:It's TV on demand, silly (Score:3, Informative)
- Start of campaigns against unlicensed distribution of TV shows.
- Such campaigns will not be of the jackboot 3-am-knock-on-the-door RIAA variety.
Piratebay can cock a snoot at lawyer's letters because of the current Swedish law. However, there are concerted efforts to criminalise the abetting of 'piracy', which would make them vulnerable. Further, each person downloading a copyrighted TV show and also sharing it via Bittorrernt is violating the copyright.
I suspect the reason we've not seen any clampdown on such activity is because there has not been any clear loss of business to TV show producers. Indeed, it's arguable that some very high-selling DVDs owe their success to P2P distribution of shows that were cancelled. I'm thinking of Firefly, for instance.
This does not sit well with the growing business in on-demand TV, so I expect some kind of action. However, I don't expect Apple to adopt **AA tactics, and Google certainly won't. What I expect we'll see instead is a very well-designed Google service that competes directly against Piratebay and the like, with the small addition of adverts to the show.
to advertise Google DRM? (Score:1, Informative)
http://mutednoise.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1879 [mutednoise.com]
Re:Why is it? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't read Cringely very often, but I've never seen even him have anything really negative to say about google.
Actually, he has said some negative things (or least not positive) about Google. In particular he wrote some articles on how AdSense may be squeezing as much money out of advertisers as they are willing to pay [pbs.org]. Also followups here [pbs.org] and here [pbs.org].
Re:It's TV on demand, silly (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, what Google bought was a 5% share in AOL, not Time Warner. AOL is a (formerly) wholly owned subsidiary of the company formerly known as AOL Time Warner. So what Google bought wouldn't get them access to those shows anyway.