It's All About the Inventory, Baby

Filed in archive Announcements on September 23, 2005

One of the most ingenious things about Google's Adsense program was the result of easily adding so much more ad inventory for Google to sell. After all, Google's income comes from advertising and revenue is bounded in part by how much of it you can sell. I believe that we will continue to see innovative thinking like AdSense; expanding Google revenues even more.

I have not spent much time pretending to be a highly paid Googlian. But right off the top of my head I can see many new avenues opening up -- and none of them represent much of a departure from AdSense. Take local search for example.

I went into Google's Local Search and typed in a hunted for local pizza parlors. It predicably gave me a list of places along with phone numbers and a map. But which one to pick?

If this were television, we might watch a 30-second commercial. Wait, why not let me click on a 'video' option and see the spot? Hmmmm, some believe that video is too difficult to produce and stream. I am not one of those people, but how about placing a link that shows advertiser photos!

Think about this: EBay is aquiring Skype in part to enhance revenues with some form of a pay per call business model. Google can do the exact same thing. But here is the kicker: it is not limited to loyal auction sellers to pay for that service -- its open to every business who wants customers and doing so through local search is very AdSense like.