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Google may be writing traditional media's obit
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Published: November 8, 2009
"Googled: The End of the World As We Know It," by Ken Auletta (Penguin Press, $28)
Ken Auletta, who writes the "Annals of Communications" column for The New Yorker, has access to many of America's heavy-hitting media moguls. Here's the major "take away" from this book: Those moguls aren't so heavy-hitting anymore.
Traditional media are in crisis. Newspaper circulation and advertising are down; TV viewership is fragmented, and the broadcast networks have lost huge chunks of audience share; Internet advertising is up but brings in a fraction of the dollars that traditional media advertising does.
In "Googled," Auletta offers little hope this trend will reverse itself. He interviews many people involved with media, from newspapers and magazines to television, book publishers and the music industry. No two people completely agree on what the future might look like in terms of media consumption, but they all agree that one possibility is a complete steamrolling of traditional media models.
Google, though not to blame, has everything to do with this.
The Internet search engine has become such a part of our lives that, like Microsoft software in personal computers, you just accept it as being there.
Certainly, Google has made a wealth of information available to the world.
So why is this leading to chaos in media? Because Google, searching for ways to monetize its search engine, began selling advertisements unlike anything that had come before. Advertisers only pay for how many times the ad link is clicked on by users. The price is fairly low, but it makes money for Google because of the massive number of people - some 3 billion - visiting its search page every day. Google had revenue of $21.7 billion in 2008.
In short, Google built the better advertising mousetrap. Advertisers have flocked to the Web's low cost, targeted advertising pioneered by Google. This isn't the only reason traditional media is in trouble, but Google has become a target of choice for frustrated traditional-media types. The complaints got worse after the launch of Google News, a handy aggregator of the day's news that has siphoned readers away from daily newspapers and news media Web sites.
Much of the book is like this - a back and forth between the complaints of traditional media titans and Google's leaders, who often come across as naïve as the Google corporate motto, "Don't Be Evil." There is also quite a bit about the Google culture.
But what's more interesting are the ideas from Google and others in Silicon Valley about the future. There are predictions about multifunction TV boxes that will allowing for taping shows as well as Web access. There are sections about the future of smart phones, including the idea that one day you may simply point it at a building and all the stores, restaurants and other businesses will pop up on your screen, as well as the pertinent telephone numbers and Web addresses.
Like it or hate it, Google has been a large part of the digital revolution that is changing the way the media world works, and the conclusion of most of those interviewed here is that people either need to adapt or get trampled.
Kevin Walker edits Friday Extra for the Tribune and blogs on TBO.com.
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