Google Image Search - soon to be ad enriched!?
So, Google is looking to lift their slowing profits by monetizing another product. Google image search is about to introduce image Ads. Good news for people wanting to sell through image ad inventory, but as John over at AOL highlights, there is a copyright ownership problem with displaying advertising with images, isn’t there? Web search results are summaries that link you to the site owner’s content. Images, even thumbnails represent the entire copyrighted material of the artist. Seems that if they display advertising without the artists / photographer’s approval or compensating the photographer, they’re going to have an issue.
If you own imagery - better start looking at doing some inventory checks on google images.
** Quick update. The loophole that Google is looking to use can be found in this 9th Circuit Court Ruling.
Seems like it is the constant battle of monetization vs. rights issue. But Google has made a mint of just leveraging other peoples content.
Check out the full story over at : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1t9ASFGIJlY or read below :
May 7 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, is considering running illustrated advertisements alongside the results of Web queries for pictures, moving beyond its text-based ad business.
Matching graphical-display ads with image searches “represents a large opportunity, and there’s lot of potential for advertising revenue there,” Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, told Bloomberg Radio today. At the same time, the company must ensure such ads don’t drive users away, she said.
Google is seeking new sources of revenue as growth slows for the four-line text ads that generate almost all of its sales. The Mountain View, California-based company’s revenue grew 56 percent last year to $16.6 billion, down from 73 percent growth in 2006.
“We haven’t found a proper way to monetize image search to date,” said Mayer, who oversees search products. “You may see us roll out an ads-image search in the future, but when we do you’ll know that’s because we found a way that ultimately enhances user happiness with the product.”
Google calculated in 2006 that it was giving up as much as $200 million a year by not including text advertisements with its image search results, and that figure has probably increased since, Mayer said. Trials showed that text ads drove people away from conducting image searches, and Google dropped that idea.
Display ads may work better with image searches because they seem more natural to people looking for pictures, Mayer said. While the company has done mock-ups of how it might present the ads, it hasn’t tested them on users, she said.
Original Article : Google May Run Display Advertisements With Image-Search Results
By Crayton Harrison and Fred Fishkin
Filed under: General News on May 10th, 2008