How Google Took the Work Out of Selling Advertising

James Fallows of the NYTimes wrote today that "Google's great technical strength - the "sun in its solar system," as Mr. [Gary] Stein put it - is the way it automatically grasps the themes and emphases of each Web page". And how did Google put this idea to work. According to Jim, "...thanks to automated ad sales, small publishers have a more viable hope of creating a business, and keeping independent voices, than they did even a year ago." In other words, AdSense allows a connection between specialized web pages and vendors that suit in an entirely automated manner, instead of handling manual placement for each ad.

But just as automated placement of ads in a rich media environment can and should be automated, so goes the creation, production, and deployment of rich media ads. But this process is currently as hands-on intensive as ad placement before AdSense - and that isn't smart.

ExecProducer is the engine that automatically creates any kind of rich media video in any format, style, and look - the right ad for the right medium, whether it is an Internet ad for a new computer on Google to a car ad for a major campaign. Every one professional and available at any time on-demand.

"Why does that matter?" writes Jim. "It completes the publishing revolution brought on by the Internet. The first stage was the liberation of the reader, who, thanks to browsers, could look at publications in any part of the world. Next was the liberation of would-be publishers. Thanks to blogging tools, anyone can present his or her views online."

But video production is still a roadblock to rich media - it's expensive, time-consuming (even if you DIY because of tools and training), and hard to keep current. Even the best pros in the field prefer to work on months-long big projects with big budgets that really require their hard-earned hands-on expertise - not little every changing daily video tidbits produced and shipped in Internet time. As Jim points out, "Free expression" has always been freest when it has rested on a solid business base. Technology's latest unexpected effect on culture may be to help revive a diverse exchange of views." That's what we see as well.