Adsense: bits to atoms?
Sep 23rd, 2005 by jim galley
As a visitor to MIT’s media lab, I loved Negropontes book being digital
(sidenote: I cannot believe that amazon classifies the paperback as vintage. 1996? Are we really that old?)
The intro made a compelling argument how atoms would ultimately give way to bits, forever changing the way we acquire, access and utilize products and information. Being a member of PC Magazine, this was extremely important to me – it foretold the death of the publishing industry, no?
Given this backdrop, it seems that the death of atoms [at least for publishers] may be a little premature – even today. Looking at the most recent PC magazine and Maximum PC issues, it seems that Adsense has gone atomic.
Google took out full page ads in both of these publications and resold the space to adsense customers, allowing these companies to gain a foothold into publications at a fraction of the cost. Publish.com did a writeup on it, complete with interviews with the adsense participants. The ads can be viewed online as well.
I remember talking about this very strategy many years ago at a PC Magazine editors day dinner with some industry ad execs in Boston. Bridging the gap – I mentioned – between online banner ads and magazine ad space from an online perspective seemed an exciting proposition and a unique position unmet by existing ad networks. I got polite nods and a few ahhs from it, but nothing materialized.
That is, until now. Chalk another one up for Google.