Google Content Network and the AdSense Trojan Horse

Adam Ostrow at Mashable posted a tip on Twitter tonight to a New York Times report on Google’s planned Content Network, in which they’ll distribute video and video ads through their installed base of AdSense publishers. This a big deal reflective of how Google’s integrated ad capabilities can in a single stroke shift an entire segment of an industry, and a reminder of the power, scale and reach the AdSense network gives them. Online video’s in for a big shake-up.

Some first impressions and questions:

• Very cool, very smart, tons of unknowns.
• What will publishers with their own video content think about this?
• Will there be an opt-out setting for publishers who still want to run display ads through their AdSense account?
• SpotRunner and other self-service video ad creative agencies could be big winners from this.
• Do you classify this as display or performance ads? My guess is the model will end up being a mix of both. A display ad teasing the video with a performance component on the click-to-play.
• Will there be a follow-up call to action beyond the first video? A second video, maybe, or another display ad? Or maybe CPC text ads? It could be any or all of these.

One thing is exceptionally clear: the few lines of JavaScript that AdSense publishers have installed on their sites are Google’s gateway to deliver any bit of Web functionality that can be imagined across the incredibly large network with the flip of a switch, and today Google has said clearly that they’re not afraid to experiment. Howard Lindzon says this is a big deal for video and Rafat Ali’s right that there’s a critical if attached to this particular campaign, but there should be little doubt that this is only scratching the surface of Google’s ambitions to leverage the prime real estate they already control on an overwhelming number of Internet properties (and don’t forget mobile fits in there, too). Think someone at Google isn’t wondering how some derivative of Gadgets – Google’s framework for encapsulating pretty much anything you can imagine – might be published and monetized in this same way? What does the Web start to look like when what we think of today as ad units deliver more value to end users than the site where they’re displayed does?

This isn’t just relevant for content providers, either. In fact, it may be an even bigger deal for application providers who may end up with a viable, performance-based model to federate and monetize whatever it is they do as contextual transactions – and I’m using that term about as broadly as it can be applied – across a huge swath of the Web.

Give it time, but the implications of this have the potential to significantly change the economics of the Web and create a new class of opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. I’ll be watching it closely, and you probably should, too.

Category: advertising || Tags: adsense, gadgets, google, google content network, transformation, video ||