Stop the presses! Google extended its advertising model to that most mobile of media, the newspaper. It sounds crazy, especially in light of the reaction to certain advertising moves the search engine made earlier this year. But this latest maneuver just might be more successful.
Google started the program in the fall with a small-scale test that included the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and about a dozen other newspapers. The full-scale test will allow 100 advertisers to run their ads in any of 50 participating metropolitan newspapers, including the Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and a variety of papers belonging to the Gannett Company. Advertisers will use the AdWords interface to place their ads.
During this larger three-month test period, Google will forgo its commission on the ads. If the test is successful, Google may expand the program to all of its online advertising customers - and will no doubt begin taking a commission. Currently, its commission for its online ads is about 20 percent.
It's actually a little more complicated than it sounds on the surface, and it works rather differently from the way a standard AdWords ad works. "This test is not an auction and we are not buying and reselling ad space," explained Google spokesman Michael Mayzel. Advertisers can pick specific papers, and even specific sections of papers, in which they wish their advertisement to appear. Newspapers, in turn, set prices for ads, and can reject ads based on whether they have room or whether the ad meets the paper's standards of taste.
So the system may not be an auction per se, and it boasts certain important differences from the standard AdWords system (mostly revolving around control), but "This is a system in which advertisers will be bidding for space in the newspapers the way they bid for ads on the Web," insists Owen Youngman, vice president of development for the Chicago Tribune.
Search Engine News 
/ 5 
