The difficult relationship between Google and the little ones
The search engine trio of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft—GYM for short—is a bloodsucker for traditional print media companies. That’s the impression one gets if one believes the account given by Michael Hack, manager for Central Europe at the Norwegian software company Fast.
The search engine trio Google, Yahoo and Microsoft - GYM for short - is a bloodsucker of traditional print media companies. This is the impression you get if you believe the account of Michael Hack, manager for the Central European region of the Norwegian software company Fast. "It's perverse, because Google doesn't produce anything of its own, but profits from the work of others and makes a very good living from it," said Hack in an interview with Pressetext. While Google is growing rapidly, the turnover of traditional media companies is declining, he said, explaining the imbalance in the online market. Fast operated the search engine Alltheweb until 2001 and today develops the software Fastmedia, which is used by many media companies, such as the Financial Times Verlag. Fast's search solutions enable smaller companies to become independent of Google and its AdSense advertising program. According to a Fast representative, the large search engines have broken the relationship between media companies and advertising customers. The software company now wants to help traditional media companies to respond to GYM, which is taking more and more market share, claiming the majority of online revenues for itself and growing at an above-average rate.
On the one hand, the newspapers' online sites benefit from Google, which directs traffic to their websites and thus generates additional advertising revenue. On the other hand, Google uses the content without authorization and without paying for it. Google itself describes its relationship with newspapers as a partnership and profitable for its media partners. With the AdSense program, Google helps its partners to generate billions in additional revenue. Google sees the problem more in the imbalance between Internet usage and revenue from online advertising. A Google spokesperson: "Media users spend 20 percent of their time on the Internet. However, the internet only has a small share in the distribution of advertising money among the media - in Austria, for example, only 2.5 percent compared to TV or print"
On the one hand, the newspapers' online sites benefit from Google, which directs traffic to their websites and thus generates additional advertising revenue. On the other hand, Google uses the content without authorization and without paying for it. Google itself describes its relationship with newspapers as a partnership and profitable for its media partners. With the AdSense program, Google helps its partners to generate billions in additional revenue. Google sees the problem more in the imbalance between Internet usage and revenue from online advertising. A Google spokesperson: "Media users spend 20 percent of their time on the Internet. However, the internet only has a small share in the distribution of advertising money among the media - in Austria, for example, only 2.5 percent compared to TV or print"
