Google's Newsprint Envy

The internet giant that is Google has finally conceded defeat, almost. Google has announced that it is breaking into the newspaper advertising business. The company which boasts the ability to find anything a body could want online is now going offline. The Google website explains the move is a courtesy to all the small and medium sized online businesses; giving them the chance to reach a wider audience. According to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), the company is actually responding to the surprising Nielsen findings about newspaper readers.

The Nielsen study released in May 2007 revealed that the newspaper readers of the America are a goldmine, especially those who also visit the paper's web site. This audience is reportedly more educated, has more money, and does more internet shopping than the rest of the net's surfers. Over half of the newspaper readers who visited the paper's website had college degrees, compared to only 38.8% of those who did not go to the sites. Google's new target group is also more likely to be employed with 90% holding a job (only 72% of regular internet visitors were employed). The group was also found to contain more professionals or those who held managerial positions.

The newspaper reading group also comparison shopped twice as much as the rest of the internet visitors. They also planned vacations more often, and made more purchases online. The NAA also found that a third of the group found newspaper ads more trustworthy than internet ads when they were researching a product.

This is the market that Google needs to tap into. Yes, the newspapers have been scared of the net advertisers since the internet popularity exploded in the nineties. Search engines like Google have been rolling in ad dollars since then. There have even been rumors of the internet's takeover of the newsprint media's audience. The Nielsen study however, shows that although the net's popularity is going as strong as ever, the demographic that has the buying power-the professional, upper middle class-is not abandoning the morning paper. As a matter of fact, they are taking their cues from print ads more than they ever were. Such reliance on print ads also fueled their internet purchase of a product most of the time.

It seems that since Google can't beat newsprint, they will join them. The program that the company is rolling out will allow advertisers, from companies of any size, to place ads in newspapers across the country. The pricing will be established via a bid process, but Google maintains that it will not be an auction. Instead, the bids will fuel negotiations between the paper and advertisers over several factors such as dates, ad size, and location in the paper.

There is no doubt that rumors of Google's takeover of newsprint will soon arise, but that doesn't seem possible. I'm sure that if the dailies that are read across that country begin to resemble websites with little news and a lot of ads, the educated readers will find their news elsewhere. Google has to remember to tread lightly with the new demographic they are trying to reach. They aren't stupid.