Google fails to flog Web 2.0 auto-ad model to papers

Print Ads goes six feet under as profits disappoint

By Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 21st January 2009 12:45 GMT

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Google’s attempt to bump up its ad revenues beyond the interwebs has hit the buffers – as a result the company will dump its two-year-old Print Ads program.

The web kingpin said yesterday that it would kill off Print Ads, which was launched in late 2006 to sell ads in newspapers, because it has failed to live up to expectations.

“While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we – or our partners – wanted,” wrote Google Print Ads director Spencer Spinnell on the firm’s official corporate blog.

The world's largest text-ad broker had originally hoped that Print Ads would bring the company’s automated method of selling ads through auctions to dead tree news proprietors.

Google said it would stop offering Print Ads to around 800 US newspapers on 28 February. Meanwhile, advertisers who have campaigns already booked will have their ads placed by Google until 31 March.

That decision comes less than a week after Google sounded the death knell for a number of its pet projects.

Mountain View, in a series of separate announcements, said last Thursday that it was killing, halting development on, or curtailing access to six products, in yet another cost-cutting exercise at Google. The firm also plans to axe 100 staff in its recruiting division. ®

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