By Rick Aristotle Munarriz
January 2, 2008
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I'm getting the feeling that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is getting as retro as Pong and a Thompson Twins album. The Times of London is reporting that Google is in talks with several European publishers to buy ad space in their print publications. Google will then turn right around and auction off that space to its online advertisers.
Google Print isn't new. The search-engine rock star has been placing ads in many stateside publications, dating to its original experiment in the fall of 2005, when it approached tech-friendly magazines including PC Magazine and Maximum PC to break in the platform.
Nor is Google alone in its ventures into old media. Online heavies such as Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Monster (Nasdaq: MNST) have brokered deals with growing consortiums of newspapers to flesh out the print world's cyberspace hold on sponsors.
Google Print has a more retro flavor, though. It's actually delivering ads on the old-school format. That isn't entirely surprising, however, since Google also sells everything from radio advertising to television time.
The interesting aspect of this move is simply the timing of it all. The company's $3.1 billion pending purchase of ad-serving titan DoubleClick promises to get some thorough scrutiny in Europe. Some of England's leading media companies certainly see Google Print as more of a threat than an opportunity. The European Commission has torn Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) to shreds in the past, and Google won't be getting the royal treatment just because it's the world's top dog in search.
Ultimately, Google promises to be unstoppable. It really is the king of all media. It may butt heads with the European Commission or with old-school media juggernauts overseas, but sponsors have little reason to spit out Google's accountable, performance-based ad platform once they've tried it.
There's only one real concern for Google investors at this point: Is this focus on old-media outlets an ominous sign that Google is maxing out its growth? Is Google becoming like Starbucks, with a store on every corner, or McDonald's, with more than a billion served?
Oh, no. Don't tell me we're down to McGoogle now.
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