All media owners want to attract advertising revenue. Google is no different.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Big media companies have lots of money and content, but they have no way to tap into a good base of users.
I think we have to recognize as an industry that users have a lot more choices and can click away to a lot more media. As a result, the advertising we create really needs to be something users want to see.
We get better search results and we see more appropriate advertising when we let Google know who we are.
The thing that people seem to miss about not just Google, but also our competitors, Yahoo, eBay and so forth, is that there's an awful lot of communities that have never been served by traditional media.
Google's thing is not advertising because it's not a romanticizing operation. It doesn't involve expression. It's a link. What they're doing is selling access.
Google actually relies on our users to help with our marketing. We have a very high percentage of our users who often tell others about our search engine.
Google can say they are not in the content business, but if they are paying people and distributing and archiving their work, it is getting harder to make that case.
We are a consumer company and our success is directly linked to our users trusting us. Therefore we have the same incentive as the user: they want to see relevant advertising so their experience of Google is positive and we want to deliver it.
Google was founded to get information to everybody. A by-product of that strategy is that we invented an advertising business which has provided great economics that allows us to build the servers, hire the employees, create value.
Google is a consumer brand and people need to be comfortable. If we were just an advertising brand we wouldn't have the same concerns. We've always tried to promote transparency and choice among our users.