Prepare For Google Ads…In Newspapers!

Published by: Codrut Nistor, in News

January30th2008

Do you think the newspapers as we know them are dead? Some people do, and I am one of them, especially because I find most of the written press to be less trustable than independent online press (basically, written press can't be independent, but I won't get into that now). Despite the fact newspapers are becoming less popular with each step forward of the online press, Google feels like placing a bet on newspapers... but in fact it'sand even more than just a simple bet!
Google’s view of newspaper ads

So, what does Google want with newspapers, after all? Above, you can see the reasons that make the IT giant put their hopes "on paper": newspaper ads are most trustworthy of all mediums, the percentage of readers buying something advertised in the newspaper is very high, compared to online ads and, at last, while you can talk on the phone, play some online game and also browse a site containing ads, 62 percent of newspaper readers are only reading the newspaper (probably the 38 percent remaining are also drinking a beer or coffee...). Good...so where is this taking us?

When I read about Google embedding hyperlinks in newspaper ads, I thought this is a joke. Well, back in the 80s, operating systems that require more than 1MB of memory to run properly were also a joke for most people, and look where we got today! The answer to the question "How to add hyperlinks to newspapers?" is very simple, in fact - barcodes! The ads will have barcodes printed on themselves, the readers are going to use their smart phones to capture the specialized code (this one already got a name - QR Code, and has been around since 1994), and then the smart phone is automatically redirected to a certain website.

Obviously, the smart phones don't have this technology implemented yet, and there are also other problems, like sharing the (future) revenue between Google, newspapers, and mobile carriers. Fortunately, we won't see this happening in the next 5-6years, so you can take your time to enjoy your smart phones, as well as favorite newspaper, the way they are now...