The news today that the William Morris Agency is close to a content development deal with Google’s YouTube video channel ought to put a final stake through the heart of the idea that Google is a technology company. Oh yes, they use technology as a means to an end but ultimately they are providers of content, and of advertising opportunities against that content.
Nor is Google an advertising agency, despite claims to the contrary from time to time. They may serve up tools that traditionally were provided by agencies to clients but they are aimed at smaller advertisers who are unlikely to go the agency route.
As Google trims the fat accumulated over the last couple of years of stunning revenue growth it’s easier to see the outline of the real company emerge. What they’ve cut back on are the extraneous bits that don’t allow them to serve up content and advertising. Compared to a diversified company like GE which has a substantial manufacturing and technology businesses in addition to its entertainment holdings, Google looks like a purer media player.
Given the increasingly fluid parameters of 21st century media, Google also serves as a preview of what’s to come. After all, the backbone of YouTube has been user-created videos, just as Google’s search engine plumbs the Internet for information that is by and large created by non-Google entities and individuals. There is a parallel here with broadcast network television which is relying increasingly on unscripted “reality” shows.
The longer term possibilities of a convergent media world are also implicit in the way Google, YouTube and indeed Hulu works right now. Search means access without the temporal boundaries imposed by a programming schedule. Each program becomes an entity that lives or dies on its own without regard to the vagaries of what night it’s on or which show it’s up against. In other words, Arrested Development could still be cranking out new episodes.
For advertisers, this opens up a whole new set of options.
Targeting will be even more finely tuned as people search for their favorite shows and movies, or programming with specific topics or stars. People watching Mork and Mindy in Anchorage on a Tuesday night at 11:00PM will get different ads then people watching the same content in Tucson on a Saturday afternoon. There will even be two chances to serve ads, during the search and during the programming (either as a pre-roll, with interruptions as is the case on much of television now, or even at the bottom of the image as on some YouTube vids. Don’t like it? That’s what premium channels are for.)
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