Is FACEBOOK the answer to effective advertising on YouTube?…..Part 1
There is no argument that Google is the 800lb gorilla on the Web, but there has been some talk that they might be challenged and given a really good run for their money by a company such as Facebook or Microsoft.
Take a look at this article that appeared in Wired Magazine in June of 2009 showing some of the strengths and weaknesses between Google and Facebook.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall
While I don’t particularly agree with the author on some major points made, I do think there are reasons Google should make a serious effort to buy Facebook if even for the sole purpose of customized advertising.
To get one’s arms around the whole of this issue we should really bring up some history and major points leading up to now.
Background on the challenges facing Google and YouTube:
-How Google makes $$
Google makes money by paring up advertising with the keywords a user inputs to create a search. If I search for “stinky cheese” on Google I will not only get information about smelly cheeses but I will also see keyword based advertising on the right side of my screen for Land O Lake and Cracker Barrel cheeses.
The Good: I will not only learn about Gouda cheese from informative cheese fanatics and their blogs but I will be presented with places that sell stinky cheese locally and over the web. Essentially I get all I could ever hope to learn about stinky cheese and where I can buy it from around the world.
The Bad: Well I really can’t think of anything bad about Google’s process of giving both information and a place to purchase what I searched on. In the past this practice of paring up information with ads would be a bad thing and a frowned upon practice for printed media. For example if I was reading an article in the Sunday news about smelly cheese and its life extending effects on humans only to see a half page ad for a local cheese monger at the end of the article telling me about a huge sale going on NOW! In this context I have to admit I would view the article I had just read with some skepticism and question if its information was truly unbiased or just an elaborate ad created by the news paper. When the same pairing of content and advertising appears in a Google search result I have no issue with it. Why we have shifted our perspectives this way I am not sure. I have not read anything that conclusively defines the cause behind our not trusting printed media paring content with ads but trusting Google when it does the exact same thing.
To be continued….
