It’s no surprise that as part of its pact with AOL, Google will begin to offer forms of advertising that depart from its traditional, indeed signature, text-based ads. Saul Hansell has this piece from the New York Times noting that under its deal with Time Warner, which is expected to be announced today, AOL will get around $300 million worth of advertising on Google, and some of the ads will be experimental, containing graphics and logos.
This expansion in ad format was apparently part of the plan all along, but accelerated by the AOL talks. Google will make the new ad options available to all advertisers, according to the piece. Can video advertising be far behind, particularly given the increasingly video-oriented focus of AOL and the film and TV content properties owned by Time Warner?
Update Related to Google-AOL Deal: Carl Icahn is at it again, as expected. The combative Time Warner investor says the Google deal is a big mistake.
“The real risk for Time Warner shareholders is that a Google joint venture may be short-sighted in nature,” Icahn said, adding that a broader set of deals should be considered to “ensure a bright future for AOL.”
If the pitting of Google against Microsoft and Yahoo, with Comcast somehow thrown in for good measure, isn’t Time Warner’s effort to get not only a broader set of deals but the best possible deal, I’m not sure what else qualifies as savvy negotiating.
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:32 PM|Comments(0)
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