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October 24, 2008
Why Google is having to take a punt on gambling
Dan Sabbagh: Media analysis
Sequoia Capital is the venture capital concern that helped to back Apple, Yahoo!, Google and YouTube, so its cheery PowerPoint presentation that begins with a picture of a tombstone and the observation “RIP Good Times” got Silicon Valley talking when it was released earlier this month. In a series of gloomy slides it detailed the woes of the American economy, with perhaps the most troubling figures showing how advertising growth in the US has fallen (despite Obama's frenetic spending). Over here, media companies might be forgiven for wondering why it took the Americans so long to realise that advertising was declining, but we all get there in the end.
What's more worrying, though, is not the macroeconomic analysis but that Sequoia believes that its internet and technology businesses - supposedly at the heart of a growth sector of the economy - need to worry. Nobody, in short, is immune to the downturn.
Check out Google's performance in the UK for a demonstration. The explosive growth is, for the moment, over: revenue of £406 million in the first quarter; £392 million in the second, and £409 million in the third. Don't forget too that in Britain, Google has an estimated 86 per cent share of search advertising - which it must hope the regulators don't notice - and that the UK, in terms of the penetration of the online advertising market, is ahead of America.
No wonder that Google, despite some fire and brimstone from the Church of England, relaxed its ban on gambling advertising. Analysts, taking a punt on how much the new business could be worth, estimate revenues to Google at anywhere between £100 million and £200 million a year, which in itself could provide another 10 per cent of growth next year. With that much at stake, it is not surprising that Google's self-denying ordinance came under pressure when prospects dimmed. After all, this is the moment in the economic cycle to get the money in; one can only wonder, if only for a moment, what other ads Google could take if growth stalls further.
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Meanwhile Sequoia's PowerPoint tells its investee companies that survivors will have to do nice things such as “make cuts”, “review salaries” and “spend every dollar as if it was your last”. This is not the moment to burn money in pursuit of market share; this the moment to focus on establishing a business model - “get real or go home” is the firm's concluding observation. All that, of course, seems sensible enough, although one wonders if it can be taken too far.
On the Sequoia thinking it sounds foolishly optimistic when Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, talks about growth first, profits later. But Facebook has scale and nobody wants their favourite website to be overwhelmed or overfocused on advertising. Otherwise we would cheerily listen to 60 minutes an hour of adverts on the radio.
The days of easy online growth are over, that's for sure, but it doesn't mean that hapless consumers should be forgotten in a scramble for monetisation. Every extra revenue opportunity, such as Google's decision to take gambling adverts (or product placement in a Bond movie), brings some risk. It is possible to be too desperate.
Tina Fey, the comedian credited with bringing Sarah Palin back to earth, is surprisingly difficult to watch in the UK - unless you want to see her dress up as the Alaskan governor. NBC does not own the international rights to its own show and, while some clips are available internationally, most people remain unaware that Fey is somewhat funnier than just the one lookalike impression. Indeed, wider exposure is not helped by NBC's desire to take down Fey as Palin clips from YouTube.
Mercifully, you can find the higher-quality full clip version on Times Online, and other good newspaper websites too, but make sure you are searching on google.co.uk to get the links easily. Yet this is hardly good enough if you actually want to watch Fey doing anything much else - leaving old fans and new converts to wait for the next season of her 30Rock, which is easily the funniest half-hour show on American television.
The trouble is that Five, the UK broadcaster with the rights to 30 Rock, is struggling to work out what to do with it. The first series played late in the evening and was barely promoted. Unsurprisingly, it rated poorly. The evidence suggests that the schedulers want to dump the second series on a digital channel, or perhaps, play it on Five, late, where without marketing it will fail again.
The other option is to find one of those IP spoofing websites, which for a fee, allow you to fake your location. Then you can go on to NBC.com, or hulu.com, and watch the show, almost legally, and save Five the bother. |
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发表于 2008-10-24 10:45
