Content Quake

Oh, sly Googalie. You are so smart, so sneaky, so strategic. Google has introduced their Ad Manager. But what the heck is it and why in the world would Google do it?

“Google Ad Manager is a hosted ad management solution that can help you sell, schedule, deliver, and measure all of your directly-sold and network-based inventory.” That’s directly from the horse’s mouth. Ad Manager will help folks do ad inventory management quickly and easily. And, best of all, it’s free. So, why would you want to do this instead of something open source, like OpenAds OpenX? Well, here are two reasons. First, this is a hosted ad manager. That means you don’t have to maintain the platform. That can be a lot of work. Also, it’s easy to use. And, best of all, it’s free. Or is it?

Google isn’t going to do something because it helps you. Okay, let me rephrase that. Google isn’t going to do something for you unless it ultimately helps them. That’s business. So, what does Google stand to gain from this move? I see a few major things. I see Google trying to head folks off at the self managed ad space pass. If you follow the web at all, you will have noticed some perturbed people as of late. They are frustrated with how Google is handling their customer base. And the bread and butter of that base is the web publisher. Google has made a few recent moves that have angered those web publishers. I can see this move as a way to assuage these web publishers from going it on their own. But I can also see it as a way to garner medium sized web publishers and their ad inventory. But, why in the heck would Google want that?

Let me ask you a question. How important is data for a typical web publisher? Yep, that’s right, it’s extremely important. And how important would it be for Google to have access to all that data? More importantly, how important would it be for Google to have intimate knowledge of other networks ad data? Well, I think it’s a fair assumption that Google will be crunching all those numbers in the background.

So, is it worth it? That’s for you to decide.  But before you do, please go over and read OpenX’s recent blog entry on this.  It’s compelling.