Friday, June 10, 2005

Get By With a Little Help From Your Competitors???!!!!

When you think of search engines, you probably immediately think Google or Yahoo. Well AOL wants to change that and they want to accomplish this goal by actually using their competitors. AOL is introducing a new search portal and rather than spending millions of dollars in traditional television marketing, AOL is actually using the Internet to let users know about this new service according to today's New York Times.

AOL is actually buying advertising space on Google, marketing its new portal. They want to rival Google and they are using Google to get the word out. It is a little ironic isn't it? Google says it does not mind taking AOL's money but I have to wonder if this is a good business move on its part. I do not think that AOL will take the market share for search engines away from Google, but I can only wonder what will happen next.

Will a move like this find a way into political Internet advertising? Are we going to see Democratic Candidates buying advertising space on Republican Web sites? Would those Republican Web sites be willing to take money from their competitors? Some say that the political world is behind the corporate world in terms of Internet use, so will they one day adopt these tactics as well?

I guess we will just have to wait and see if AOL made a sound investment in its out of the ordinary advertising strategy. Time will only tell....

2 Comments:

Blogger Nicole Swann said...

I can't see Democrats advertising on a Republican's web site. There is no way a Republican would take money from a Democrat and cede valuable space on a campaign web site.

But then again, it's hard to believe that Google would accept a competitor's advertisement. I doubt Google is hard up for cash, but they may be if enough of their traffic gets redirected to AOL.

11:44 AM  
Blogger BWS said...

I think it will be hard for AOL to rival google or yahoo. AOL's main feature is its chat rooms and email system, not its search engine.

As for advertising, I think as long as a targeted audience is being reached then both parties should invest in such advertising.

3:11 PM  

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