Traverse City Record-Eagle

Ryan Peters

Related Photos

August 27, 2009

Ryan Peters: Google's page is brilliant

By RYAN PETERS

Google recently was convinced to launch a project that targeted the radio airwaves in attempts to deliver a new value to radio stations, in the form of educated advertising placements for the radio audience at large. Their findings revealed nothing more than what playing cards Google is holding. In short, Google hasn't a clear idea how to pair behavioral music patterns with what people want to buy.

To put music patterns in context with advertising happens like so: AC/DC listeners enjoy hockey sticks, electric guitars, horsepower and Budweiser. Or, a computer science analogy can be phrased as Google knows how to decorate a room, but doesn't have the framework to physically build it. They have done an excellent job of comfortably fitting themselves on top of your Internet Explorer tool bars. People can easily forget that the reality is a slick portal back to Google's search engine home page.

Google has become a cyber garbage can for our population's "unknowns." The brilliance of Google is its front-end home page. It appears innocent, simple and inviting.

Hypothetically, if you had a list of people's questions and interests, how would you convert that into a business model? Model variations can be endless; the only limitation is a lack of your own creativity. Algorithms can be provided.

Google's front-end revenue model is an advertising model. I would gladly correlate search data and package those findings as "Google market research." This provides power-packed intelligence for corporations to navigate within competitive market segments. Alternate data use can be exemplified with Monster, a job search Web site. The company made millions sorting resumes from their site. Once discovered they provided institutions with recruitment information at a rate of $40 per single lead, someone close to the matter explained. This is one plan by which companies can leverage data to reroute information into a profitable business model.

Google makes the large chunk of their money by mapping where they want you to go in cyberspace. Word searches (preferably nouns) coupled with large advertising budgets are the first to pop up on your computer screen, relative to your search criteria. In terms of the amount of advertising money paid to Google, you can experience cyberspace travel either on the autobahn or the less popular, seasonal road. Indiscriminately, the latter is for those who tend to be unconventional Web trotters, start-ups or both. Personally, I prefer deeper four-wheeled Web excursions. This is the core front-end of Google's business model, what I consider to be the boring part.

This theory can be applied to a "real life" economic model. Business segments and associations can blitz Google to drive information to their targeted demographic audiences. Large, organized groups can deliver a message that can be widely distributed.

Example:

Campaign #1 -- Let's push for non-smoking across the entire country; risky, due to legislation, but worth the mind share.

Campaign #2 -- Let's drive an orange juice campaign across the entire country, very attainable. You may jokingly want to discuss this Orangebot futures fund with an investment specialist.

I enjoy Google's jukebox mannerisms; if you kick it hard enough it will almost always play what you want to hear.

However, it's important to always remember the king search engine's founding words: Google, please "don't be evil" with my data.

Ryan Peters is a technology journalist who can be found online at http://contactryan.wordpress.com

Text Only