Forum Moderators: goodroi
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Google Inc. has been chosen by News Corp's MySpace to provide search listings for the social-networking site in a four-year deal that will give Fox Web sites at least $900 million in payments, the companies said Monday.The agreement, announced after the market closed, also calls for Google to provide search-advertising services for the majority of Fox Interactive Media Web sites, which are owned by News Corp.
In winning the agreement, Google will replace Yahoo Inc. as the search provider now being used by MySpace, one of the Internet's most popular sites.
Google picked as MySpace partner [marketwatch.com]
[edited by: engine at 11:03 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2006]
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Bad news for adsense publishers. We need Google to find more spenders, not more publishers!
But, 900 million dollars ain't bad for a day's work.
If you ask me, this is a great deal that's pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things. I wonder what it says about google's future with social networking. hopefully we'll see better things from them on that front.
We shall see, most folks on MySpace are too busy clicking on pretty pictures to think about text ads.
Maybe, but the traffic numbers are huge (meaning that clickthrough rate may not be so important), Google may be envisioning more than just the usual keyword-targeted AdSense ads (see rohitj's post), and Google may also feel that it's important to stake out a MySpace claim just to keep other prospectors at bay.
Google should fix their search first.
It's unlikely that any search engineers are being yanked from their desks to work on advertising deals.
Don't know if this announcement is good or bad for Google. But it was announced after the market was closed, so I am not sure todays result reflect its impact.
On another note as an Adwords advertiser I hope I will be able to opt out of advertising on myspace. The user demographic is not good for what I sell. But the sheer size of its usage will likely result in my ads appearing too frequently. ugh.
Something tells me the days of aggressive real estate and mortgage advertising are nearly over anyway. 18 year olds are a GREAT market for other aggressive PPC markets however like credit cards. :P
its horrible for adsense publishers as the EPC for many many categories is going to drop like a rock.
Why do you think that? Because you believe inventory will be sucked up by MySpace, or because you think unhappy advertisers will opt out of the content network? I'm just wondering what you're basing your concerns on.
If it is just text ads on the search results pages inside MySpace, I think they'll largely be ignored, I think people are getting really good at ignoring the google text ads as they have been incorporated into so many webpages now.
Where MySpace is valuable to advertisers/marketers is in the demographics and the fact that people return daily some multiple times per day. Lots of opportunities to show targeted ads if they can figure out a way to do it that doesn't piss people off. I was just reading today about another supposed MySpace killer called vox.
Muskie
opt out of advertising on myspace
So do i - the only way I can possibly see this deal being good for google is to stop anyone else getting it. Much the same as AOL to be honest.
The fact they are having to pay through the nose means little due to their over-inflated share price.
The demo on this will really not suit most advertisers - I for one do not want any of my ads on myspace, bebo or any other similar social networking site - well not until Google get real with their click fraud systems.
frantically searches for sublime 70's graphics
Yet another reason not to use adsense, more useless clicks.
No, it's another reason to use your blocking filter.
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Who's laughing now?
We shall see, most folks on MySpace are too busy clicking on pretty pictures to think about text ads.
Never been there myself, but if you are right, why would google pay almost a billion to NewsCorp for for 4 years of ads?
its horrible for adsense publishers as the EPC for many many categories is going to drop like a rock.
Why do you think that? Because you believe inventory will be sucked up by MySpace, or because you think unhappy advertisers will opt out of the content network?
The number of adsense pages will increase hugely; therefore the rate advertisers need to bid will drop. Therefore the amount paid to adsense publishers overall will fall.
There's no reason for Google to lose advertisers over this -though some will use filters; indeed, it is possible that Google will use this new outlet to seek more trendy, 'yoof' advertisers, which would help fill those cavernous spaces.
[edited by: Quadrille at 6:27 pm (utc) on Aug. 8, 2006]
The number of adsense pages will increase hugely; therefore the rate advertisers need to bid will drop. Therefore the amount paid to adsense publishers overall will fall.
Not necessarily so. Have you actually seen Myspace pages? From looking at some of them, I think the potential is overestimated. CTR will not be as good as on other sites, but more interesting is a look at the conversion rates. How good will these be? How much $$ do teenagers on Myspace spend on expensive consumer goods?
I could envision Myspace as perfect space for all the MFA junk. Have you looked at the ads appearing on YouTube? Often untargeted, probably not converting too well. YouTube users want to see videos, not click ads. - Myspace might have the same problem: Users want to chat, listen to music, see pictures, and maybe, maybe read short text snippets. Are they in purchasing mood?
Visitors on my sites are in purchasing mood (or at least researching for purchasing decisions), so these ads are more likely to convert.
I would think that the rates would drop only for those niches that are popular amongst the MySpace crowd, luckily I believe that my area will not be affected.
I'd agree with that. I doubt if many MySpace pages will display ads for Elbonian river cruises or reindeer rides in Spitsbergen, and if they do (on a "my summer vacation" page, say), I doubt if many visitors will be in the market for Elbonian river cruises or Arctic reindeer rides.
I'd guess that Google ultimately wants to use MySpace as a way to distribute other types of ads and programming, such as the MTV video clips that were discussed in another thread. Such ads can be targeted to demographics (as opposed to keywords), which would be a sensible approach on a social-networking site like MySpace.
I believe this is a great move for both Myspace and Google, and I am astonished by Yahoo's response "...however we only participate in partnerships that also meet Yahoo's standards. We did not see this opportunity as financially prudent..."
That statement seems a bit arrogant, but then again it exemplifies Yahoo's business philosophy.
-Matt
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[edited by: tedster at 3:03 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2006]
I've watched myspace users and I doubt the demographic has much value in terms of click through or ROI, the users are very focused on their "task", not ads.
