Advertising OS or Channel Mogul?

I just read a very interesting analysis by Robert Young at GigaOm.

He notes that Google's end-game is to become an Advertising OS. I like his analysis, and it strengthens Google's position even more. However, I'm not convinced that this is Google's goal. As you can see from my previous entry, that it is not Microsoft and Yahoo! that are the "competitors", but rather someone like News Corp. (the Fox/MySpace parent company). They have way more to loose than the online guys. The TV/Print/Radio/Satellite distribution networks & content providers have owned the advertising channel and most content production for years. Along comes Google and they build a more efficient ad processing/management engine AND access to cheaper User Generated Content (UCG). YouTube gives them both additional consumers of advertising AND a really cost-effective way to create content that millions of people want to consume. The beauty is that they paid a one time production fee for it, rather than paying writers, producers, actors & cameramen for every episode of every show. Very smart.

Social networking is about UGC. We are social and creative creatures. We crave interaction, not only consumption. I think Google & News Corp. understand this. In fact, many of the TV network's understand this - American Idol (Fox) and Dancing with Stars (ABC) both depend on people to interact with "unscripted" programming. So the Google/You Tube purchase makes perfect sense. I'd be watching out for News Corp. to buy Yahoo! or Ask. It puts them in the game with Google. The traditional media giants will not "go gently into the night" and they already have ad sales organizations and the human network to cross all but the interactive channel. Don't count them out of the game. There are billions of dollars at stake.

As for mobile - a comment topic to Robert's Ad OS blog - Web content is available to smart phones & Pocket PCs right now. Carriers are scrambling to build an advertising network to play in the game. I don't think they can catch up fast enough. Sprint appears to be the only one who is actually buying into the other channels. Everyone else is doing the marketing partnership thing, which doesn't provide the economies of scale required to compete with the giants. Location, device and user information is now available over the Internet (that's what my company - 509, Inc. does), so the carrier assisted/walled-garden approach to Web access will eventually crumble for all but voice-centric entry phones. When it comes to data (and arguably voice with VOIP) "mobile" is just another content distribution channel.

How we connect to all these channels may require different devices, but content is content - we all just pick our favorite kind and live with the advertising or subscription fees that support it.