An Interview with Google Offline (Radio/TV) Competitor SWMX

Henry Blodget offers this interview Josh Wexler, founder of SoftWave Media Exchange, which competes with Google's nascent efforts in the radio and TV world. From Henry's summary of the interview:

* Despite investing heavily in its radio and TV placement efforts, Google is badly lagging SWMX, especially in radio.

* In radio, Google sells remnant inventory, but the real business is in regularly scheduled inventory. SWMX generates more than 80% of its revenue from this.

* Google's attitude--revolutionize the way advertisers buy advertising--has offended many traditional media owners and is hampering growth. SWMX is growing rapidly because it facilitates existing business practices.

* The current process by which radio and TV advertising is bought and sold is grossly inefficient. This creates an opportunity for electronic marketplaces.

* eBay's media-selling initiative was considered 'dead on arrival.'

* Companies like Spot Runner, which generate a lot of buzz, focus primarily on content creation and campaign planning. These companies are complementary to SWMX, which focuses on the back-end.

* SWMX expects to turn cash-flow positive later this year. Wexler believes the company's current cash position will support its near-term initiatives.

* If Google were to buy a company like SWMX, this would require a change of approach to the radio and TV markets.

* The Google-Echostar announcement is more style than substance.

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:36 PM
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Google and AFP Settle Dispute

Earlier this year I had a chance to spend some time with the head of AFP (Pierre Louette). He seemed to want to make it work with Google (background), and it's clear he finally has. From Yahoo News:

Agence France-Presse, a global news agency based in Paris, has settled its lawsuit against Google Inc. and will allow the Internet search leader to post news and photos from AFP journalists.

The deal, announced Friday, settles the copyright infringement lawsuit that AFP filed in March 2005 accusing Google of posting news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.

Financial details of the settlement weren't disclosed.

The deal will allow Google to use headlines and photos on Google News and other services that drive online traffic to sites displaying AFP news. The companies didn't disclose where else AFP's news would be used by Google.

The nut here: "Financial details of the settlement weren't disclosed." This has significant implications. More to come.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:26 AM
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Auction, we Got Auction Sez DBCLK

See Paid Content on the NYT:

DoubleClick, the online ad firm, which is in talks with Microsoft and Google for a possible sale, is in the process of launching an online ad auction exchange, reports NYT. In this online exchange, to be launched in Q3, publishers and ad buyers will participate in auctions for ad space. It has signed up 35 Web publishers, advertising networks, agencies and advertisers to test the system. Two of the testers are Advertising.com, a large ad network, and Media Contacts, an interactive media buyer that is part of Havas. DoubleClick will charge a commission for each ad impression traded on its exchange.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:27 AM
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Google TV Trial Details

From an email from Google:

Google Announces TV Ads Trial

At Google, we are constantly looking for ways to improve the user experience and bring value to advertisers, publishers and partners. Users spend a lot of time watching TV so improving the relevance of advertising information on that medium is important. That's why today we are excited to announce our trial to deliver Google TV ads. Working closely with our partners, EchoStar and Astound Cable, we are currently running a trial to deliver better ads to viewers and help advertisers, operators and programmers more efficiently buy, schedule, deliver and measure ads on television.

Deliver more relevant ads to viewers and provide better reporting for advertisers
Advances in set-top-box technologies make it possible to report aggregate statistics on how many times an ad was viewed and whether it was watched through to the end. As part of this trial, we will be working with partners to use aggregate, anonymized set-top-box metrics to deliver timely and accurate viewing reports. Advertisers can use this data to understand the effectiveness of their TV ad campaigns and use this information to provide more relevant ads to viewers.

Bring more advertisers to TV and help inventory owners
With our AdWords™ and AdSense™ advertising programs we have seen the benefits of the long tail and we think we can apply these principles to help grow the TV advertising industry. Our goal is to extend the reach and visual power of this medium to include more advertisers, large and small, and help monetize more TV programming with relevant ads.

Create efficiencies in the existing model
With Google TV ads, the entire process is automated – from planning the campaign to uploading and serving the ad to reporting on its effectiveness. Like our AdWords advertising program, Google TV ads are bought using an auction model and through a single online interface that is already familiar to agencies and advertisers. Advertisers can target by demographic, daypart and channel and pay only for actual impressions delivered. Pricing is on a CPM basis. Because the entire process is automated and online, advertisers can plan their TV ad campaigns efficiently all year long. The flexibility of this model also allows advertisers to make changes to their campaigns as often and as quickly as they like.

This is an early trial. We look forward to getting feedback and working closely with advertisers, agencies and partners to improve and expand our TV ads offering.

more from SEL

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:35 PM
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More on GoogleClick: It Will Be Free, And Partners Worry

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From a source who is in a position to know, news that Google's DoubleClick competitor will be ... free for all to use. Like Analytics. Think about that for a moment. How did Microsoft kill Netscape? Yup, made the browser free. How will Google try to own the entire ad serving biz? Make it free. Why would they do this? Because the most valuable thing in the world of advertising is not the commodity , it's the information the commodity will provide.

Providing a scaled ad serving solution? Free. Knowing the margins of every media and marketing company in the world? Priceless.

And who figured this out? Why, Google's partners, who have been nervous ever since the YouTube acquisition. Think about it. Newscorp was ready to sign a deal with Google for their ad server, sources tell me, but they got nervous about "the fox in the hen house." And then, what happened? Newcorp went and bought SDC, an ad serving technology and inventory optimization company. Sure makes sense now.

Hmmmmm. It just gets more and more innaresting. Note Barry Diller on Google today in an FT interview:

FT: Do you think Google has taken the right approach, has had the right attitude in its negotiations with the content creators?

MR DILLER: I don’t know. They’re an impossible situation.

FT: Why?

MR DILLER: Because they bought a company and paid fair value for it. They paid what they paid.

FT: Did they pay too much?

MR DILLER: I’m just saying, they paid what they paid. It is too early to tell, and they’ve got this wonderful site with a huge amount of traffic, and that traffic primarily is dependent upon things other people own. So, you go to them and you say, Okay, let’s make a deal. And they look at what you’ve just paid for the service itself, and say, Well, you know, we actually deserve some of that. And Google says, Well, no you don’t. So it is a very difficult tug between what is now an every hour mention, Google, in everything it does, and these people who actually own the stuff, so I’m not saying they handled it well or badly. I think it is a very tough negotiation, handled by Henry Kissinger.

My advice to Google? Don't make it free. Make it better, make it cheaper, and let those who use it own the data. Ah, hell, make it free, but let those who use it own the data and guarantee them you won't use it to your advantage. But then....why do it at all?

Hmmm.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:30 PM
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