Concluding a experiment destined for failure, Google recently announced that they are pulling out of the newspaper business. Back in 2006 it seemed like a good idea to let Google’s Adsense customers bid auction style on remnant print ad space. They were kind of like the Priceline.com of the newspaper biz minus the awesome William Shatner commercials. In the end, this failed to add any value to anyone involved. Google had trouble selling print (shocker!), advertisers didn’t like the rigid system, and newspapers weren’t gaining any additional revenue.
I’m not sure what the long term ramifications of this will be. I would like to think that this validates the need for local sales reps who know their products and their clients. On the other hand, if Google can’t succeed selling newspaper advertising, who can?
BTW, I do plan on tagging William Shatner and for funnier failures, check out fail blog
Cost-cutting Google scraps newspaper ad program
