Google Apologizes For Killing Newspapers
All these people who accidentally destroyed the newspaper industry feel so bad about it! Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist decimated the classifieds sections of the nation, endowed some chair at Berkeley's journalism school to assuage his guilty conscience. Now Google, whose ad company is destroying the revenue model newspapers depend on, is hopping on the "we totally love journalism" bandwagon. Google head Eric Schmidt claimed that their DoubleClick ad service will aid newspapers! In getting more online revenue, obv, not with the whole "saving newspapers themselves" thing. "It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Eric said. Too little, too late, Google! ONCE A WHORE, ALWAYS A WHORE.
Without providing specifics about how it might be accomplished, Schmidt said DoubleClick's system for serving up online display ads could generate "significant" revenue online for newspapers.
Still, he acknowledged the boost probably won't be enough to restore the hefty profit margins that newspaper publishers historically have enjoyed from print advertising.
It's sad to see the people who killed print have these regrets so publicly. They probably wake up in a cold sweat after terrifying dreams of bloody broadsheets calling their names-"you killllled meeee!" But seriously, it's too late, Eric. Not only is this ad thing a slap in the face, but Google has a nasty habit of aggregating and indexing lots and lots of newspaper content without paying anyone. So give it up and embrace your role! You are become death, destroyer of print! You made $16.6 billion in revenue last year!
At least Craig bought the newspaper industry a little going-away present. This empty talk is just sad.
