More on AOL & Google Deal
By Melvin Ram - December 21st, 2005Terms of the AOL-Google deal have now been made public. The biggest and most surprising of these terms is that Google has agreed to display graphical ads on their main site (Google.com). Google’s core strength and point of differentiation has been its simplicity. It was what won me over.
By agreeing to add graphical ads into their search results, they may risk loosing their core competitive advantage when it comes to retaining high quality web users. One of the reasons Google has done so well financial is because advertisers know that Google has the high quality web users. Yahoo comes in second and MSN comes in third.
I use the term quality web users in reference to their ability/willingness to buy once they get to the landing page. I have seen this proven true with many of my clients. Google users convert better and I take it that Google’s clean & simple user interface has something to do with it.
Google has a talent for innovation and making complex tasks simple so I’m interested to see how Google will approach graphical ads.
In 2 words: I’m hopeful.
In 4 words: I’m hopeful but worried.
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